puppy love.

I feel it all I feel it all
I feel it all I feel it all
The wings are wide the wings are wide
Wild card inside wild card inside […]

I know more than I knew before
I know more than I knew before
I didn’t rest I didn’t stop
Did we fight or did we talk

Oh I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart
I’ll be the one to hold the gun
~leslie feist

they are now 2 and a half weeks old.

in that time, they have at least tripled in size and weight. their eyes have opened and they’ve started to (not only walk, but) run. they are interested in puppy kibble. they have had 2 “puppy showers” (replete with beer and a few gifties). they have had visitors every day while i’ve been at work. they have been held by hundreds of people.

they have all found homes.

it’s been a crazy few weeks of: friends upon friends upon friends. laughter. spooning. lots of alcohol. lots of cuddling.

i get up; i have coffee. i pet the puppies and rearrange them so they can nurse. i clean. i go to work. i go out. i am thinking about the stories i am writing, but right now there is just too much life going on for me to write them.

there is waaaaay too much life going on, and that is literally. and my heart is full of it, is embracing it, wants more.

my heart is joyous.

i think it’s the puppies. i think it’s a combination of things. but in the long run, does it really matter?

i think symbolically. by that i mean, i’m constantly, consciously looking for signs from the universe: am i going in the right direction? what should i do next? where should i go? what should i be?

i’ve been told i shouldn’t do that. but my heart yearns for signs. i think i’ve conflated the idea of signs with the universe looking out for me…with my mother saying hello.

coming up fast, (september 8, to be exact), will be the 10th anniversary of her death. with so much transition and commemoration and birth going on around me lately, i’ve been thinking a lot about her. i can’t believe it’s been 10 years since i was giving her manicures in the hospital. or buying her blankets from ikea. or she was walking me to work: she loved me in that awful tim horton’s uniform. (blech).
i miss her so much lately. it’s this ache deep in the marrow of my bones that sometimes threatens to turn me inside out.

and i thought i’d gotten used to it. i thought i’d come to terms with my identity as a woman with no parents. it’s a weird and lonely thing to say, especially when it comes with the addendum that i’ve been this way (stateless; homeless) for 11 years.

i’ve been meeting lots of new people lately, new special people, and they have all been asking me about my family.

i hear her laugh. i see the mole on her shoulder, right above her small pox vaccination scar. i almost remember her smell.

the last time i visited her gravesite, i told her all about him. how much we loved each other, how good of a man he was, how much she’d like him.
lots of things have changed. obviously. i wonder what she’d think of him now. i ask her for advice, to visit me in dreams, and the first dream i have in a while is about him.

i’m angry. i want to be mature about this, about the break-up, but to myself, i’m petty and juvenile. i think back to the series of emails we broke up through, and see what i was thinking, what i was feeling, and i’m angry he wouldn’t give me a chance to explain why i acted the way i did. why i’d reached my breaking point. why my love was stretched so thin that it snapped. he flat out refused.
and it’s not that i wanted him back in my life. wow, were we ever horrible for each other then. i just wanted a chance for proper, healthy closure.

granted, i’m a talker and he isn’t. i like closure. tying the wound off so it can be cauterized. he doesn’t.

this year, rather than spending the anniversary with him, i’m going camping with my best friend. banane and i are also organizing a (huge) memorial in ottawa. that will be the week that the puppies go to their new homes.

it’s going to be a doozy. i can feel it already. 10 years is a long time. a milestone, and my heart feels it.

i don’t often let myself feel how much i still need her. because why bother? i can’t get her back. it’s just this black hole of wanting and yearning that has no end. the yearning to crawl into her lap and rest my head on her shoulder. of being understood immediately by the person who grew me in her belly and has known me since my first swimming moments. i would love to show her montreal, that i can cook now, and pay my own bills, and graduate school.

when i left him, or we left each other, i knew right away that it was the right decision. the universe gave me 9 bundles of unconditional love and peace…chaotic ones, to be sure, but love just the same. it gave me so much support, in the form of people wanting to stop by and check on daisy, financial help, a vet popping up out of nowhere to offer services. it gave me so much inspiration and love and…

my heart is full. full of the magic of puppies. which is the magic of life…of the world…the secret. these little creatures, which i was dreading the advent of (being as i’m broke as shit, and i didn’t want to be further tied down to the debt cycle) taught me how to relax and appreciate every bloody full-pitched moment of life. i am living hard. loving hard. i am here, in the moment, in this city and job and life, and it is so good.

so good. because it has all the nuances.

it makes me think about the cycles. of everything. who i’ve lost, who i’m gaining, how life is a constant transition.

thank you, universe, for these puppies. i always said i wanted a family by the time i was 30…

~ by bee on July 25, 2009.