i can't believe i survived yesterday.

i smelled the pillows as i was leaving.

and now it's done.

i'm gone.

suddenly everything has changed

just calling to hear the answering machine greeting.

i'm spinning. 

i'm trying to find home in myself but i don't know how to right now.

i feel worthless. the only thing I thought I know how to do, I failed at. The only thing that came to me naturally, ever, I fail and fail and fail at.

I'm trying to feel strong. I'm trying to be the best everything I can be and I realize that no matter what I do 

i'm what's wrong

I don't understand how my life came so unraveled so quickly and I'm sitting in a new house and I don't have anything of my own and I'm just watching seconds pass by and wondering how I ended up here and how to not close my eyes and get back into where I was.

I miss everything and I just need to keep not thinking. I hate not thinking because it's the only thing I can do

I can think and I can love and I have nowhere to go with my thoughts because they always end up back at the same place.

I would say I feel empty but I'm filled with a lot of pain right now, so I know I'm not empty.

i am trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and failing and I don't have it in me anymore to try just to fail and yet the only thing I can do is try. 

I literally take each thought as it comes and mentally pick it up and throw it away.

if i stop for too long then thoughts flood me.

curiosity floods me.

fuck.

I hurt.all.over. and I never asked for this. I never wanted this.

I want my old life back and I can never have it back.

I deleted over 3000 pictures yesterday

it feels like everything I worked at and tried to do for the last 8 months failed.

I failed. 

and

all I know is that now I have this horrible feeling. this hard spot in my chest

and i wish it wasn't there

and i don't know how to repair it

and i don't know what to do

or where to go

or who to see

or when it will stop.

k

on & off tears.

but there is a tremendous outpouring of love here and that might be where the tears are borne.

i feel strong resentment and I don't want to.

yesterday we had a staff meeting at work - attendance was mandatory- and I looked around and realized that every single person there had just swooped in and helped me in the last week in varying degrees.

a year ago today i was in iceland, exploring a country completely foreign to me. I didn't know anything, didn't speak the language, didn't know anything about the country.

but somehow, i managed to see so much beautiful (which is not hard to do in iceland)

I guess I feel the same right now. 

I climbed onto a roof the other day and had a lovely photoshoot/hangout with two dear friends and when I was climbing down I had this sudden acute feeling of fear. Not anxiety or panic but just cold, hard fear.

I made one friend feel my heart beat. 

I couldn't remember the last time I had felt so intensely.

not intensely sad or intensely anxious.

just intense.

this makes no sense. I'm going to write an essay instead.

unwanted, unprecedented, but not entirely unnecessary

i don't want his sentiments.

Here I am, hopeful again
I can't say when
I wasn't this way

Don't need to worry about me
That's what I say
It's not what I mean

Here I am, swinging alone
A timeframe surrounds the pictures I hold
But they don't hold up well
Started to wonder if I fell in love with you at all
If I fell in love with you at all

And when will a time come
I could hear a sad love song, that doesn't speak to me
And when will a time come
I could sing a nice love song, using thou and me

Here I am, walking away
My head's held high
What's the use gettin' down
Because all that I wanted is here
I just kept the ground, close to my ears
-- - -- -- - - - --- - - - -


i built a monument
for the love we used to know.
but that is far removed,
and you say that i'm gonna be okay.
and yeah, i'm gonna be okay.
but it doesn't seem that way.
no love, not today.

thought you were made for me
and we shared our history
and in time you'll tear your eyes far away.
like a rubbernecker's gaze
is it really safe to say
that we're just made that way,
made to brave the pain?

'cause i was told to get out
told to leave
told to have my things in the parking lot.

---------------------------------------
I was a blindfold, never complained 
All the survivors singing in the rain 
I was the one with the world at my feet 
Got us a battle, leave it up to me 

What it is and where it stops nobody knows 
You gave me a life I never chose 
I wanna leave but the world won't let me go 
Wanna leave but the world won't let me go 

I was the one with the world at my feet 
Got us a battle, leave it up to me Leave it up to me 

three songs I've been playing over and over and over again

I woke up this morning with a rose and piece of chocolate next to my bed

and i'm really okay.

songs: 

that's what I say not what I mean - Feist

Ambulance - Eisley

Blindness- Metric

xox

k

stumbling block:

writing the address on an envelope

&

having no return address to write down.

august second two thousand eleven

I named this chapter of my life "chaos"
I'm leaving the universe in charge of everything.

it's the only thing to do.

for the panic-stricken who i have spoken to in recent hours and days:

there's a roof over my head

a balcony at my bedside

two cats at my feet

and a bottle of wine on my bedside table.

day by day

minute by minute.

for now, i'm keeping my xo's to myself.

k

I guess melancholy brings out creativity.

single.

broke.

homeless.

so much for reinvention. 

the only thing worse than the aforementioned is doing it all in a city that isn't yours.

fuck.

I don't have internet - I'm just stealing it from a café for 20 minutes.

i'll.

figure.

something.

out.

worst.

a brief note

I hate how I feel right now!

I am weak-feeling

tired

nauseous

sweaty

anxious

etc.

I think it is probably due to dehydration from drinking too much coffee and wine over the weekend and not compensating with water, especially in this crazy heat wave where I sweat my life out everry time I breathe

But when I don't eat or drink enough then it causes a cycle where I don't want to eat or drink.

So now I am eating morsel by morsel some pineapple.

How come these things happen before big days? A double shift at work today and at the on-set of it I just want to go back to bed with a cold cloth on my head.

Tell me, how do we fight these feelings? How do I triumph over morning uneasiness? Some days I feel wonderful in the morning, and then there's days like today.

At the heart of it, I am afraid that I will feel crappy at work and have to come home. 

Unbelievably, I have an entire scenario worked out in my head of how disastrous my day COULD be and it hasn't even started.

oh please please please go away unpleasant feelings and thoughts.

grant me the serenity

grant me the courage

grant me the strength

I myself am the only thing keeping myself down. 

another piece of pineapple.

what is wrong with me?

in slight desperation,

k

01.42 - July 11, 2011

Salut!

I sense a huge sense of neglect for la blog. So sorry. I really am.

I'm sorry because the blog is my release and I love writing in it. 

So I finished training at work and tomorrow I work my first real-employee shift and it's a double! This is exciting.

It's funny how I still become nervous (much the same as the first day of grade 7) when something "new" is on the horizon. Last week I completely turned into a shell of my real self...less than a shell..an exoskeleton of myself when the parade of very sophisticated, beautiful, tanned, apparently perfect co-servers came in for the night shift.

Alas. I'm 5 foot four a half for lordy's sake. I don't have to be afraid of anyone.

So this weekend was Folk Fest and I have to admit it was a bit heart wrenching not being there. Do I miss putting my contacts in beer caps? Yes! Yes I slightly do!

What I missed the most though was sleeping/dozing under trees/the brilliant sunshine while listening to the clean, crisp voice of the newest singer/songwriter on the folk scene. 

However, on this side of the St Lawrence (which, actually I think is the same side that Winnipeg is on too...have to work on my geography, apparently), I managed to have a lovely weekend. 

A friend was visiting and we had a lovely time eating Thai food and then getting stuck in a torrential downpour. We found solace in a Mexican restaurant/bar where we dried off with brown paper towels (those horrible rough ones found in most department stores and offices) and two shots of whiskey.

A man asked if I could salsa and began stroking my hair.

"well, no sir. I can't."

mmm....awkward.....move on.

Saw a Johnny Cash cover band (don't worry Eric, they have nothing on you! Does Eric the Great read my blog? Maybe? Hopefully. Let's agree on hopefully.)

and talked to the wee hours when I hopped into a cab and had the most ludicrously fabulous taxi driver who kept commenting on my accent (this is becoming a theme in Montreal. Apparently the accent is a big deal. Especially being tanned right now...I keep getting asked which Mediterranean country I'm from.)

Eventually we had to stop so I could get money out of a bank machine, and it sounds silly but I had a very beautiful moment in the lobby of the bank. They were playing (rather loudly) Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major and it was 3 in the morning and I was alone and I closed my eyes and hummed and smiled. 

Such a silly little moment but I fell asleep with a smile on my face that night thinking about the number of beautiful moments I've been experiencing. I want to collect them all, stream them altogether, and continuously realize I'm living the dream.

Spent Saturday poolside and ate chorizo sausage hamburgers (if heaven is a meat processing plant, these sausages were god). Slept for 13 hours and then spent my Sunday shopping for work clothes.

The weather is humid, the attitude laid back, the environment exciting. I do miss Winnipeg in the summer time, but Montreal sure doesn't make summer too difficult to enjoy!

Now I have to get a bit back on track and start back up with Kwagala-related things, organizing school...real-life things. Though I'm pleased as punch that there are still many, many weeks left of summer and friends and love and beauty and opportunities to photograph.

Which is where I'll leave off today, with some photographs. I want to keep writing as much as possible and, as you, dear readers, may now realize, photograph. I actually was looking into fine arts programs at Concordia but I'm conflicted. So I want to do everything-BIG DEAL. I can be the first lawyer/doctor/photographer/journalist in the world! I just need to live to be 194 which is a pretty reasonable thing to count on.

I have to figure out school - what's more my calling: journalism or law?

I want to call Refugees International and say "hey...should I do law or journalism? I wanna help. I'm on the cusp of the rest of my life."

Maybe I will.

I have nothing to lose except my life if I ran out into traffic or my hat in this windy weather.

The odds are on my side, non?

I hope everyone is enjoying their life to the utmost and know that if you're reading this, no matter the distance, you're in my head, heart and...well that's all. Those are the only places you are. 

I have been taking lots of film and polaroids but my scanner is in Winnipeg so I can't share yet.

But I will.

My friend Miriam playing Patanque (a fancier word for bocci ball)

more heineken then corona. marketing strategy?

I wouldn't mess around with a girl with solid metal balls in her hands either.

cooking with the awesome new air organ we got ($5!) 

cool tree. cool katie. it almost rhymes.

et ca c'est tout pour aujourd'hui!

xox
k

01.41 July 8 -2011

life is as perfect as it should be.

xox

mystery weekend - solved!

an island 350 kms Eastish, accessible only by ferry!

SO great!

biking

scrabble

reading

eating (yes, that IS in fact bacon and cheese on white baguette - the cardiac arrest express!)

dinosaurs

more scrabble

water

mountains

photos

polaroids

childhood memories

story-swapping

more wine

more food

more reading

relaxing like crazy. 

it was so great. I promised a full(er) update of life. I have a job at Newtown, an awesome 4-story restaurant/lounge/terrace/nightclub.

Yesterday I had a $1000 bill (proudly done by a bunch of guys from Stonewall) and received zero tip because I am "still training" and therefore the $171 tip went to my co-workers.

ACK!

I was more than unimpressed with it. 

it'll be my turn soon.

right?

otherwise, my days have been very lazy. hot. I'm used to being back in Canada but still lethargic and unsocial. 

I just want to write poetry and take photos and eat healthy food and watch the weather. I can't say I'm "forcing" myself to go out, but I'm certainly heavily considering everytime I want to do something. 

[sorry to those who have to deal with me!]

Now that I'm "coming into my own" here, I sure wish I closer friends to share it all with. I want to talk and laugh and share and whisper to people I know well. 

I want a trade.

a skill.

to be done school.

It's nice how my priorities have changed. Remember readers when all I wanted was haircuts and flowers? Now I want an education (completed, preferably)

friends

love

and

laughter

Do I sound bleak? I suppose I do. I'm not bleak. I'm not even bored. I wish I had a car to explore with. Plan is to get to Winnipeg and pick up Harpo and drive him back. I don't know how, when, or with whom. But a plan is hatching!

The quality of my writing has gone down hill. And so has my photography. all in one fell swoop. dear oh dear.

friends: I know Folk Fest has firedancingmusiclovedrugsdrinkinghappinesssunshine&awesome

buttt....

come hang out in Montreal instead!?

ok. I'm done bickering. Below are photos from the weekend getaway. Other photos of life en Montréal will just have to come some other time.

I dreamed (dreamt? is that only phonetically?) I had a perfect friend who lived next to me and wanted to explore with a camera in hand the many facets of this city. 

July brings work and heat and music and more laziness.

Also, cheap blueberries at the grocery store.

xox

à bientôt

K