Three Things

It always seems to be what people ask.

If your house was on fire what three things would you grab?

It's easy to answer that question when your house isn't on fire. I've heard camera, laptop, pets, photo albums...stuff that's expensive or not easily replaceable. In the past I've answered photo albums and portfolio which morphed into flash drive as life turned digital.

When I woke up to a smoke filled apartment two weeks ago, I wasn't thinking about what I should grab because I wasn't fully aware of what was going on. I put on pants, grabbed a jacket and scarf and as I was calling 911 I reached into my school bag with the intent to grab my flash drive and came out with my wallet. By this time the operator was telling me to get out of the apartment and the smoke was so thick I couldn't even find my shoes.

Outside flames were exploding out of the kitchen window of the apartment next door. The fire continued to eat up the building and initial feelings of panic collapsed into terror.

Every resident made it out.

Hours later and the fire under control they told us everything was gone. The second floor had collapsed into the first. It was unsafe to enter the gutted, skeletal structure that had once been our home.

Everybody tells you that the most important thing is that you survived. But nobody tells you that survival can feel like drowning, treading water to keep your head just barely above water. That even little decisions like choosing a pair of shoes because you no longer have any can feel overwhelming. That sirens in the middle of the night will wake you up in a cold, terrifying sweat. That the last two weeks have felt like two years.

That fear can be an isolating and lonely place.

(But you survived.)

Peeking in the window of my bedroom later that day as my now former landlord literally looted the place for anything that had made it, a twisted, wet ball of fabric caught my eye. It was a vintage dress that I had only worn once. A memory. Something bright to cling to amidst the wreckage. Something strong to hold onto in a space crowded with doubt.

(I am so grateful and touched by the outpouring of support from the London community and the help and support of my classmates and faculty as well UWO. My heart is so full from their generosity that it is sometimes difficult to find words to express my utmost thanks.)

Remembrance Day

I'll remember the war later

A day to recall.

Closes her eyes, makes a wish.

Please remember me.

The sky is falling

There is a crack in my ceiling. This is no hairline crack. It looks as though a mini earthquake took place above my head and the world was too busy to notice because of the lack of casualties.

It reminds me of when I was a child and I had a hankering for Asterix and Obelisk comics. The Gauls' biggest fear in those books was that the sky was going to fall on their heads, and even a magic potion made by their druid couldn't save them. This crack looks like that. Like the sky is going to fall on my head.

I lay in my bed and I contemplate this crack and what could potentially happen if the sky were to collapse above me. I imagine a bathtub or a couch, maybe a fridge just missing me and how I would spend the rest of my days appreciating life again. Maybe I would even give a few inspirational speeches to university students on how it feels to die. Almost.

I surmise that if the bathtub or assorted pieces of furniture were to fall on me it would probably make the local news, but nothing more because it's just me. One person. In the production of a fifteen minute newscast last week at J-school it became apparent just how jaded I was becoming. I barely even flinched at the fact that the death toll for the Indian earthquake had risen to 100 casualties or that 35 bodies had been dumped on a street in Mexico. All I thought was, that's it?

I still have roof over my head for now, but I've only just realized that the sky has already fallen. It's been falling for years. I just never took the time to notice.

The power of three

I left London Ontario three days ago to attend my brother's wedding in Canmore.

Three days.

Three days and I have already forgotten that I live there yet at the same time I have a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach when I realize I only have three weeks left before I have to go back.

Three weeks ago I wrote the first poem I had written since I started grad school in May.

I last posted in my blog three months ago.

Stephen and Ali, now husband and wife, started dating three years ago.

Last night after cracking a fortune cookie in Windermere my fortune read: Remember this three months from now. Good things are in store for you (in bed).

It had better come true.

Haiku Day! Haiku Day!

Haikus for Distance

The phone sits on her ear

Balancing his poets voice on

The nape of her neck.

Her body listens

Entwined in intonation

Words beget kisses.

He sings her to sleep

Long after he has told her

Goodnight but goodbye.

Moustache Matters

"Khanne mukhlai jangaale chhakdaina"

The literal translation of this Nepali phrase is "a moustache does not prevent a person from eating." Or as we better know it: "where there's a will there's a way."

I love colloquial Nepali having spent five years there as a child. I also love moustaches having dated many hipsters in Vancouver. Welcome to my new favourite phrase.

My dad's Nepali language teacher teaches him a new proverb everyday. In turn my father has taught this to me. Although I have been told "where there's a will there's a way" many, many times during my lifetime it has never quite resonated so much as when I was told it in moustache form. Perhaps I have been hanging out with too many hipsters and it was the moustache reference that got me or, perhaps, I just needed to see the phrase in a new form. Never deny inspiration when it presents itself to you, dressed up in perfect language or not.

I have just moved to London, Ontario and am a few weeks into my journalism program. I left Vancouver and the first man that I have been crazy enough about to not eat or sleep for the past month. He told me before I left that he just couldn't do a long distance relationship and I believed him. That it was him and not me.

In J-school we have been discussing the concept of small "t" truths. Telling the truth. Always tell the truth. This begs the question, however, of what is Truth. Capital "T" Truth. My Truth is this: If someone or something is worth it, go for it. Don't make excuses as to why it couldn't work because yes, it may not work, but what is to be gained from not trying? What is to be taken away from choosing the safe option? What can be achieved from staying clean shaven for a lifetime?

Where there's a will there's a way.

Just make sure there's a will first.

Lesson learned.

They forget. We remember.

My grandpa had a fall. He broke his hip and he is bleeding in three areas of his brain. He will never walk again. He spent the week in the hospital and came home this weekend. My grandma, however, doesn't remember who he is. Next year they will have been married 70 years and when she is told that my grandpa is her husband she claims she isn't married.

How quickly Alzheimer's robs us of our identities: my grandpa is no longer a husband, my mother is no longer a daughter and I am no longer a granddaughter. How slowly this disease has crept into my grandma's brain and taken us away from her; her grandkids were the first to go, her kids followed one by one, but grandpa was always her husband. I always felt she couldn't live without him, that they would follow in the manner of the elderly couple from "The Notebook," dying within minutes of each other.

My father has always told me that having kids has been the greatest accomplishment of his life. I am incredibly flattered by this statement seeing as my dad has done some amazing things and is one of the most intelligent men I know, but I digress. As someone who cannot wait to one day have a loving husband (who will hopefully also take care of me once I am old and claimed by Alzheimers) and children I can't even imagine not knowing them as I gradually fall into old age. We are a part of who she is and we are here because of her.

I have three black and white photographs that were taken of my grandparents just after they were married. In one they sit on the lawn and my grandma is looking at my grandpa and laughing. Although the photo is black and white you can see the sun spilling into the frame; a second hand illumination that captures a moment of pure happiness and love. They are beautiful.