Love Changes You
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Posted:Mar 18, 2023 3:23 pm
Last Updated:Apr 29, 2024 5:20 pm 5940 Views
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You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or who have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.
Margery Williams
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Catnap
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Posted:Mar 18, 2023 2:58 pm
Last Updated:Mar 19, 2023 8:32 am 5902 Views
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Our story tonight is called Catnap. And it’s a story about Marmalade the cat and Crumb the as they find ways to play through the winter. It’s also about a spark of something sweet that begins to grow between friends, a pup cup enjoyed on a heated patio and a suitcase ready to be packed.
Marmalade was dozing in her spot by the window. She’d been too small to climb up to it that first winter when I found her, a tiny orange kitten out in the snow. But the following autumn, the first day the boiler had kicked on and the radiators began to circulate warmth, she’d discovered it. A broad, flat shelf built over the radiator and right beside a big picture window. She could lay her soft belly against the wood and feel the heat rising up as she looked out at the birds and the branches. Pure kitty heaven. Plus (and I think this was a BIG plus), Crumb couldn’t reach her there. Crumb, my little brown with a snaggle tooth and a lions mane of delightfully dishevelled fur, adored Marmalade. He brought her his toys and waited for her at dinner time, shifting excitedly from paw to paw as her plate was set down beside his. While Marmy frequently pretended not to notice any of this, I saw that they snuggled together under the blanket at night and that she cleaned his face and ears each day. We were a little family, the three of us, and I loved our life.
Crumb and I took walks most days, though lately the icy sidewalks had made them less fun. I’d bought him booties to protect his paws which went about as well as you might imagine. He’d stood at the door alternating between shaking out each leg and freezing in place, as if we were playing red light/green light. We’d made it about 20 feet down the sidewalk before we’d abandoned the whole idea and since then waited for dry days to go on walks. Instead, I found some other ways to entertain all of us over the winter. I’d grown a pot full of catnip on the windowsill in the kitchen, and in the afternoons when we all needed a pick me up, I’d rub a leaf along Marmalade’s scratching post and over her tiny toy mice and Crumb and I would watch her go from sleepy and disinterested to wild attack cat in a flash.
I found out Crumb enjoyed car rides and once a week or so we’d head out to do some errands together. He quickly became a favourite customer at several of our stops. He was such a natural ham that he made everyone laugh and fall in love with him. In fact, if I showed up at the hardware store without him, the clerks would peer over the counter and listen for the scrabble of his paws on the linoleum asking “where’s Crumb”? They kept biscuits by the register for him and those days out had become a long buffet of treats for Crumb. We’d often end at our favourite coffee shop which had a covered patio with heaters and a walk up friendly window. I’d get my Matcha with Soy, Crumb would get his Pup Cup with biscuit garnish and we’d find a table in the sun. He’d scramble up onto my lap and we’d enjoy our quiet time together. Whenever we got home from those days out, Marmalade would meet us at the door, thoroughly sniff Crumb as if it assure herself he hadn’t been anywhere he shouldn’t have .. then turn her tail and head back to her spot in the window.
We’d also had more play dates with Birdy, the sweet giant greyhound who Marmalade had known since she was a kitten. Birdy’s favourite thing to do was sleep, so when he and his dad came over, it was often for a quiet day inside together. In fact, those days together had grown more frequent in the last couple of months. We’d started, without even noticing, to spend every Friday night, all five of us, watching movies on the giant sofa in my living room, waiting for take out to be delivered or cooking together in the kitchen. It had grown slowly, organically, this feeling of being together being more natural, more comfortable than being apart. And now, Birdy had his own bed beside the others and his own bowl in the kitchen. He ate different kibble than Crumb and I’d bought a big bag of it from the pet store to keep in my pantry. Talk about commitment!
I went to pet Marmalade in her spot at the window and she woke up as i laid a hand in her fur. She snuggled her head up into my palm as I rubbed her ears and scratched down her back. I started to tell her about something we had planned. I think Crumb already knew since he’d found my suitcase open in the middle of the bedroom and had sat in it and frowned for a while. “Now Marmy” I said, leaning down to talk quietly to her “You’ve got to be a big girl, a good big sister, you know how Crumb looks up to you.” Her tail flicked and she began to purr. “You and Crumb and Birdy, you’re gonna spend a few days with a friend. You know her. The nice lady at the Inn. She’s going to take care of you all and you’re going to have fun there. Birdy’s dad and I will only be gone a few days and we’ll bring you back something nice.” She turned and looked at me shrewdly then faced back to the window where a bright yellow bird with a swath of black across his wings and bold yellow eyebrows sat. An Evening Grosbeak, a rare pretty bird. It seemed auspicious. Crumb pranced over and I scooped him up so he could look out as well. I was excited for our trip. We were headed somewhere sunny where we could walk on the beach and see how this little spark we’d started might grow. And I was also nervous to leave the animals. The Innkeeper had jumped at the chance to host them as they were still closed for the season and she’d mentioned she’d been thinking about getting an animal friend. So we’d all of us be testing things this next week or so. I’d pack up my own bag with sandals and sundresses and books to read on the beach .. and then I’d pack up their little bags with their favourite blankies and toys and kibble - and tomorrow we’d drop them off at the Inn. I imagined them running through the halls, Crumb chasing a toy down the length of the ballroom and Marmalade preening among the houseplants in the library. I was excited to go and already excited to come back home again.
Kathryn Nicolai
Nothing Much Happens
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Trust Fall
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Posted:Mar 5, 2023 12:24 pm
Last Updated:Apr 15, 2023 8:24 pm 7768 Views
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Picture a place where it all doesn’t hurt
Where everything’s safe and it doesn’t get worse
Oh my
We see through bloodshot eyes
Picture a place, somewhere else far away
Where you know what they mean and they mean what they say
To us
And would that be enough?
Are we runnin’ out of time?
Are we hidin’ from the light?
Are we just too scared to fight?
For what we want tonight
Close your eyes and leave it all behind
Go where love is on our side
It’s a trust fall, baby
It’s a trust fall, baby
You and I and everyone alive
We can run into the fire
It’s a trust fall, baby
Yeah, it’s a trust fall, baby
Jump with me, come with me, burn like the sun
We’ll talk, then we’ll cry, then we’ll laugh ‘till we’re done
Oh my
It’s like we’re out of our minds
We’ve been runnin’ for our lives
We’ve been hidin’ from the light
We’ve been far too scared to fight
For what we want tonight
Close your eyes and leave it all behind
Go where love is on our side
It’s a trust fall, baby
It’s a trust fall, baby
You and I and everyone alive
We can run into the fire
It’s a trust fall, baby
Yeah, it’s a trust fall, baby
What if we just fall
I’m not goin’ without you
(And you’re not goin’ alone)
I fell so far ‘till I found you
(But you know what you know when you know)
So I’m not goin’ without you
(And you’re not goin’ alone)
‘Cause you know when you know
Close your eyes and leave it all behind
Go where love is on our side
It’s a trust fall, baby
It’s a trust fall, baby
What if we just fall
What if we just fall
What if we just fall
What if we just fall
What if we just fall
What if we just fall
What if we just-
Trust Fall
Pink
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Beginning of the End
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Posted:Mar 5, 2023 11:59 am
Last Updated:Mar 5, 2023 12:25 pm 6168 Views
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Welcome to the Virgo full moon and the shifting of timelines that will forever alter your path. Celebrated on the eve of March 6th; exact in the morning hours on the 7th.
Virgo is the sign of the virgin, the healer .. of groundedness, of logic and of taking your deep well of emotions and figuring out how to honour them in the physical world. The challenge of course is not to get caught in the details, in the wounding, or even in what seems practical or logical. Instead, it is to embody your healing and to believe in your heart, knowing you can bring anything into fruition because you are worthy and deserving of every truth that beats wild and free inside of your soul.
The new moon in Virgo occurred on August 27th, 2022, the same time that Mars shifted into Gemini for the next seven months and which will finish on March 25th. Mars in Gemini has asked you to look at the choices you have made, those you can make, and what motivates you and shapes your decisions. But you have been asked to bring healing to the choices that you make. To see things differently. And in the year of healing, that also means to do things differently. Which brings us to why this full moon represents the ending and beginning of an era. Saturn, the lord of time and karma, of karmic and divine lessons, of boundaries, success, commitment, hard work, integrity and effort, moves out of Aquarius and into Pisces. In Aquarius you have been urged to break apart the structures and ways of thinking that have been holding you back. You have flirted with the unconventional and rebelled against the status quo. You have struggled with your emotions and how to move in ways that were for the good of the collective. It was a necessary but exhausting time. Now in Pisces, everything is different. In Pisces, Saturn becomes softer, gentler. It is not breaking down anything, but seeks to bring together. It reminds you of the oneness of life, of the world, and the importance of your own emotional world. It becomes more faithful, emotional. Spirituality takes on a deeper purpose and meaning, transferring to anything that you create within your life, making it necessary for you to follow your purpose and to see greater meaning within yourself and your life. But most of all, Saturn in Pisces urges you to take a leap of faith. And in fact, this entire transit for the next two years is wrapped up in just that. Because ultimately Saturn in Pisces wants you to accomplish your dreams. To make them a reality.
Pisces and Virgo are opposing signs, representing the tendency to get bogged down in the details and miss the greater meaning that is present. Of looking at everything that is wrong instead of all that is right. In telling yourself it is not possible instead of having faith that it is. It represents love on the human level and love on the soul level. Saturn in Pisces represents a brand new era that is beginning. The Virgo full moon is bringing one to conclusion as is Saturn in Aquarius which puts you on the brink of both ending and beginning something within your life. Something within yourself. Your healing, your growth and your direction forward.
Saturn will have two years in Pisces to make what is beginning now permanent. But that does not mean you will have two years to take that leap of faith as many will feel that emerging this month, as in just a few weeks Pluto shifts into Aquarius, changing signs for the first time in fifteen years. This lunation means everything as it sets your direction forward, not just for this next lunar cycle, or even the next two years, but decades to come.
Look for the themes that have been playing out since August 2022. Look for what is happening within your life now and trust your healing, trust your heart. And trust that sometimes the only way to make your dreams a reality is to take that leap of faith.
Kate Rose
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Up to Me
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Posted:Feb 25, 2023 2:50 pm
Last Updated:Feb 25, 2023 2:54 pm 6350 Views
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I think I’m fallin’ in love with this new guy
He’s got a nice place west of the 405
But I miss gettin’ drunk with you from a paper bag
Sometimes we drive up the coast on the weekends
And party with his cool friends at the Chateau Marmont
But I miss goin’ nowhere with you up and down Fairfax
What hurts the most is just how close we got to
To the life we dreamed, now I’m doin’ everything without you
If it was up to me, I’d be with you every night
If it was up to me, I’d let you win every fight
If it was up to me, you would still, still be mine
But it wasn’t up to me, up to me
I got my first cheque, you always said I’d make it
Have you heard they’re playin’ LANY on the radio?
Wish you were with me celebratin’ out in Malibu
I’m not sayin’ that my guy’s not amazin’
I keep lookin’ for a problem but there’s nothin’ wrong
The only problem is i can’t turn him into you
If it was up to me, I’d be with you every night
If it was up to me, I’d let you win every fight
If it was up to me, you would still, still be mine
But it wasn’t up to me, up to me
If it was up to me, ink your name on my arm
If it was up to me, closin’ down that corner bar
If it was up to me, you wouldn’t have broke my heart
But it wasn’t up to me, up to me
If it was up to me
If it was up to me
If it was up to me
If it was up to me
Up to Me
LANY
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The Art of Love
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Posted:Feb 25, 2023 2:25 pm
Last Updated:Feb 25, 2023 2:55 pm 6320 Views
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”Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away .. and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”
You say you’ll be down in five
The smell of your perfume
Is floatin’ down the stairs
You’re fixin’ up your hair like you do
I know that I’ll be a mess
The second that I see you
You won’t be surprised
It happens every time, it’s nothin’ new
It’s always on a night like tonight
I thank God you can read my mind
‘Cause when you look at me with those eyes
I’m speechless
Starin’ at you, standin’ there, in that dress
What it’s doin’ to me, ain’t a secret
‘Cause watchin’ you is all that I can do
And I’m speechless
You already know that you’re my weakness
After all this time I’m just as nervous
Every time you walk into the room
I’m speechless
It started when you said hello
Just did something to me
And I’ve been in a daze
Ever since the day that we met
You take the breath out of my lungs
Can’t even fight it
And all of the words out of my mouth without even tryin’
And I’m speechless
Starin’ at you, standin’ there, in that dress
What it’s doin’ to me, ain’t a secret
‘Cause watchin’ you is all that I can do
And I’m speechless
You already know that you’re my weakness
After all this time I’m just as nervous
Every time you walk into the room
I’m speechless
Yeah, baby
It’s always on a night like tonight
I thank God you can read my mind
‘Cause when you look at me with those eyes
I’m speechless
You’re standin’ there in that dress
Girl, it ain’t a secret
‘Cause watchin’ you is all that I can do
Ooh ooh, I’m speechless
You already know that you’re my weakness
After all this time I’m just as nervous
Every time you walk into the room
I’m speechless
Oh, you know it baby
Speechless
Dan + Shay
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Windswept Lullaby
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Posted:Feb 18, 2023 1:08 pm
Last Updated:Mar 5, 2023 12:35 pm 8071 Views
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And the day shall come when I no longer reach for you in those precious moments before the dawn. Standing here alone silently .. holding tight to the edge of love. The thread that once connected us has unravelled.
And yes - I’ve walked barefoot, across the windswept ruins of love. And yes, I’ve called your name (did you hear it?) And somewhere along the way I’ve gathered strength from my sadness .. a greater understanding - that physical miles were not the only thing that separated us. My heart, my song .. my soul’s companion. For as long as I can remember there was only you. You are a light that no darkness could ever extinguish .. and I am beside you always .. wherever you go.
~~ Isabella
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No Other
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Posted:Feb 10, 2023 8:23 pm
Last Updated:Feb 13, 2023 2:37 am 7592 Views
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There is someone I keep in my heart. I love him and no one else. It is a love that will only die with me. You may ask, death could be some time away - what if from now to then, you love someone new? Well I can tell you, there is only one love. If any person claims to have loved twice in all their life - they have not loved at all.
What else can I do
When the tears have all been wasted?
And the only voice you choose to hear
Sings the songs of our hearts breaking
Say your dreams, they all have changed
Well, my smiles, they all have faded
And the thoughts that used to seem so pure in my heart
They now feel jaded
Because I wanna feel like I did
Yeah I wanna feel innocence
What else can it be
‘Cept this pride I’m sick of drinking
Storm clouds all have gone away
Can we stop this thing from sinking?
Because I wanna feel like I did
Yeah I wanna feel innocence
And I want you to know
And to feel in your soul
That someone has come and gone
I’m stuck up here with you
I never thought we’d get this high
I used to be afraid of falling
Now I’ll spread my wings and I will fly
I wanna feel like I did
Yeah I wanna feel innocence
I wanna feel like I did
Oh, I wanna feel innocence, oh
I
Innocence
Hootie and the Blowfish
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Quiet Celebration
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Posted:Feb 7, 2023 7:29 pm
Last Updated:Feb 15, 2023 3:35 am 6766 Views
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Our story tonight is called Quiet Celebration and it’s a story about softly stepping into the next year of your life. It’s also about a good dream that lingers after waking, a glass raised with best wishes and a cake decorated with orange slices and rosettes.
Don’t count your candles, just enjoy the glow.
When I was growing up, each birthday was so important. How did it feel to be eight I was asked. Can you believe you’re about to be ten? All the little markers that went along with the year. The new classroom I’d move into each September. The shoes I grew out of. The pencil marks on the inside of the coat closet door and the candles I blew out on my birthday cake. They took up a lot of space in my young mind. How did it feel? And what was it like to be eleven? Maybe this is something that is generally true when we are younger or trying to establish what is important so nearly everything feels like it is. Your favorite color. Your favorite book. It matters to you. Then one day someone stops asking you what your favorite color is. If you’re ready to be thirty seven.
I was thinking of all of this today as it was my birthday and I was reflecting on how I felt about it. What I wanted to do about it. My sweet mother (when I was little), would sneak into my room on the night before each birthday and decorate it in the darkness. I would wake up to find my bed covered in balloons, streamers in a rainbow of colors (twisted together and strung from the ceiling) and confetti spilling off the edges of my desk. One year, knowing I wanted to paint my bedroom walls, that I’d outgrown the lavender everything that I’d been obsessed with when I was smaller, she’d painted “Happy Birthday” right on the wall .. and I knew it meant I would get my wish. I never stopped loving that magical feeling of waking up to the balloons and surprises on my birthday as a . Even when I was a and in every other way eager to be a grownup, to be treated as one, it never applied to my birthday.
It had been a few years now since I’d started seeing my birthday a little differently. I didn’t resent it. Certainly not. Aging is a gift not given to everyone. And I found the older I got, the more I understood myself and loved myself. But I also didn’t feel the need for the whole world to stop and celebrate the day with me. Sometimes I made dinner for friends or was taken out for a night on the town, but when I spent it alone I was just as happy. It felt a little more personal each year and sometimes I wanted to celebrate in quiet, small ways - just giving myself all the best that I could for the day.
And that was what I was doing today. I’d taken the day off and I wasn’t checking anything that had to do with work. It could wait. I lay in bed for a long time. In fact, I had that rare magical experience of waking at my usual time and feeling pretty sure that I was up, then falling back to sleep and having sweet, silly dreams for awhile and not waking again until the sun was fully risen and shining through my window. I’d dreamt of a I had years ago. A sweet, goofy hound who’d howled at falling leaves and snored from the foot of my bed. As she got older, I’d carried her carefully down the stairs each day, her old legs having grown stiff and sore, but in my dream she’d run down the stairs and race to me. When I woke, I kept my eyes closed for awhile just letting the memory and the feeling of it in my body, swirl within me. It was like finding my room decorated all over again. A gift, given to me as I slept. And I savoured it, marking it as a memory to keep close.
When I pushed myself up in bed, I took deep breaths and stretched my arms up over my head. I watched the bare branches of the trees outside my window moving slightly in the breeze and listened to the clicking and creaking of my radiator. I smiled deeply, wished myself a Happy Birthday and wondered what I might like to do with my day. It looked like it might be a nice morning for a walk. I liked to morning walk, even when it was cold out. I’d just bundle up tightly. But the morning light on my face, a little bit of movement and fresh air .. it woke me up and set me on a good path for the day, as well as seeming to help me sleep better at night.
So a walk. What else? Well, at some point - cake. Obviously there would be cake. In fact, I’d made a New Year’s resolution this year and I was sticking to it. That at least once a month I’d make sure to have a very nice piece of cake. Often it was chocolate. Honestly I couldn’t imagine it not being chocolate, but a friend of mine had dropped off a home made orange cake the day before. It was actually made with blood oranges so it was rosy pink and iced with sweet white frosting and topped with candied orange slices. She’d even gotten out her piping bag and made a few rosettes to decorate the top. It was a little cake .. cute as a button and I felt so honoured that she’d made it with her own two hands for me.
So - a walk .. a cake .. and what else? I thought about it as I wrapped myself in my robe and wandered down to the kitchen. Maybe I’d take a drive. I loved a long drive by myself with music playing and a cup of coffee in the holder. Just a direction, rather than a destination. Seeing some place I’d never been before. That always felt like an adventure and a good way to celebrate. Maybe I’d drive into another town, find their coffee shop or a bistro with checked table cloths and I’d have a meal and watch the people walking on the sidewalks. If they had a bookshop, I’d stop and buy myself a whole stack of hardcovers. It was my birthday after all. I’d stay out until I felt a bit tired, cold from the chill air and then I’d come home again with my new books and get into my softest pyjamas and cut a slice of cake. I’d raise a glass of something fizzy to all the people who were born today. All my birthday siblings in the world and wish them a year of good things.
I wasn’t sure anymore what my favorite color was. And my age didn’t take up very much space in my mind. But I was happy NOW. I felt celebrated and loved NOW .. and those were excellent gifts.
Kathryn Nicolai
Nothing Much Happens
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