Beans.

My flavourite combination of Jelly Belly is Juicy Pear, Toasted
Marshmallow, and Buttered Popcorn.

For Amy

I became a grown-up the night we snuck upstairs and ate angelfood cake
in the family room.
It had been a horrible night. All those people at the house for The
Sing, and the dreadful news from the hospital. Grandpa sitting with
his hands folded, staring into the middle distance. His hair looked
whiter.
Sometimes my dad sits with his hands folded like that. I wonder if
your dad does too.
I don't remember crying too much. I just remember angelfood cake.
Sara cried.
When Glenda came down in the middle of the night, she didn't tell us
to go back to bed, but she sat with us a while.
We just talked about anything. A bit about Grandma, how weird it was
that she was just gone. School, family, I'm not sure what else. I
remember laughing, and how strange it was to laugh and feel the weight
of death at the same time.
It felt important. You and me in our pj's, in the big house full (to
the brim) of sleeping cousins. We were all safe, and sad together.
It WAS important.
So, thanks. It was a good way to grow up.

My voice.

I want to use my own voice, and today it's crackly, a little rough.
I felt it leaving last night, yelling totals over the bar. It gets
lost in higher and lower decibles. It gets swept up into the room.
I don't like the dry ache in my throat, but I love the new timbre in my voice.
It gives words new gravity.
I've been thinking a lot about social networking. About blogging. It's
all of us clamouring to get a voice heard.
We are screeching information over other voices. Over drums and
microphones and amps turned up. Not to mention dudes talking loudly
about motorbikes, and girls oozing over heels and relationships.
There is fun in all that noise. There is good stuff in there.
But I am tired, and my voice hurts a little. And I'm not even sure
it's mine, because I can't hear it over the rumble of the room. And
your total comes to $11.50. ELEVEN FIFTY!!!

This is where I can be found.
Just a voice.
I mumble.

I don't know why I made this any of your business.

I think I am becoming more comfortable with God.
It's not something I've really laboured and thought too deeply about recently.
I feel like the letting go has allowed for some sort of equalibrium to happen.
It's not that I've entered into the Peace That Passes Understanding.
I'm not sure that peace truly exists.
I don't have to name it, or subscribe to aything. This is not required.
I am human.
The God of pink skies and big mountains and pinhole photography, has
quietly slipped in. We commune in silence. God is not audible.
The voice that I think might be God, is a bit of an imp. A Devil's advocate.
But it challenges me, and makes think differently. This (possible) God
is even kind of hilarious sometimes.
And if it isn't God, if it's just me getting wiser, who cares?
The point is that I am comfortable with God.

We are wizards.

Yesterday Heather met me for an afternoon of sitting in grass, eating
Doritos and getting suntanned a little.
Our conversation turned, as it does, to Harry Potter. Heather admitted
that she only read the first book. And that was it.
So I began to tell her all about the life of Witchcraft and Wizardry
at Hogwart's. Chronologically from the start, from the cupboard under
the stairs.
All the way to the end of The Goblet of Fire. Probably took an hour,
and it was fun.
Two adults sitting on the hill by Science World, soberly talking about
Muggles and the Ministry of Magic.. And what a little shit that Draco
Malfoy is.

Proof that we are not made to be alone forever.

When left to my own devices, I can be found sitting at my window in my
underwear, playing an echo harp, while household disaster is all
around, because I decided that sitting at my window in my underwear,
playing an echo harp would be more fun than folding laundry or moving
furniture.

The closest we came to the pot of gold.

We chased it. I don't know where we were when we first saw it.
I think we were maybe up in the woods. I have a faint memory of it
ending in the field by the boys cabins. But I am not confident.
Rainbows are like that, besides, these stories are maybe more about
what I don't remember. I do remember running down the hill, kind of
worried about slipping on the grass.
We scrambled down the beach, where it bounced on wet pebbles, and
finally to the sea. Just beyond our reach.
Breathless and happy and amazed. This was a remarkable rainbow.
I love how grown-ups still love rainbows.
I love sitting on a bus and seeing strangers nudge each other and
point to the sky.
For once, we're not talking about hockey. We're revelling in something magical.