conscious commemoration.

{leaf on my lawn...}

Maybe it's just my complete immersion in academic life, but I still find it odd that New Year's Day is in the middle of January instead of sometime in the first full week of September. I don't know -- even regardless that it's the start of the academic year, it just seems more fitting, as liminal sort of time, with the switching seasons. & maybe a better time to reflect that spring, because summer leaves the sense of fullness & richness (as opposed to winter's sort-of-stagnant holding pattern)...

Bryna played Mirah's 'Oh September' on Radio Eve last Friday & it was perfectly perfectly fitting. Lovely joyful sweet folky song.

i say wouldn't it be nice, could be a mountain paradise / we'll leave the sheets out in the rain & listen to the lonesome train / summer slowly turns to fall, tomatoes ripe we eat them all / tangly vines around our shoes / we conquer everything we do

This summer has been very good for me. Working was mellow (if unfortunately a little solitary), our little abode (that i am so, so happy about, so content in) is truly a cozy oasis of counterculture, & thus I had time & space to of unravel after this past year. It went by all quick & tumultous, but I think despite lingering worries, & my lack of control over certain things, everything is good.

& Bryna's feeling of anticipation -- that lovely sort of unanchored feeling that something exciting is about to happen -- has been contagious, I think. Because I am starting to really feel a deep sense of hopefulness & potentiality for this next while. & I am so grateful for that.

I had another dream about my baba recently; it was very simple & beautiful. I'm still really processing it, trying to really understand it, but I do know I was left with a very striking feeling of comfort... & this dream, combined with my sock-knitting spree, has made me think a lot of how I want to continue to commemorate her life.

I've been thinking about how perhaps the most meaningful & respectful thing we can do for someone who has died is become their living memory; to carry on doing what it is that most reminds you of the person, what they did that was so good & beneficial to everyone. To let them continue to exist not only inside memory, but to be through you. It maybe would be easier sometimes not to listen to tapes of my baba singing, not to knit or plant flowers or go visit the ikons at St. Basil's or do anything else that remotely reminds me of her -- but the lack of those elements in my life, the neglect of them is even sadder. & doesn't resolve any ache of the loss. I think this kind of conscious commemoration is a way of keeping such a mindful connection to them, & I think it's a way to properly grieve.

* * *

School tomorrow. I've missed it this year, despite my job & all... it will be very very good to be back as a (grad!) student -- I look forward to the studentish sort of community, being around the university when there is so much happening (not all alone up on the 15th floor with only a computer). Field work still seems intimidating, but that's why I have classes first. & a conference in Paris in October, which still seems to be a figment of my imagination.

* * *

There are so many poems in my head. I used to let them spill out more easily... but I am finding I have become quite obsessed with distilling them very precisely, then letting them steep. A little more like tea, not water. (Or what with the distilling metaphor, whisky not water. But I don't like whisky, so.) It's certainly not a bad thing, just different. Sometimes I get impatient with myself.

Speaking of things to imbibe: lavender lemonade + little tiny white xmas lights + jazzbeat on cbc! + night air that smells like chilly smoke & wet leaves/grass, moon getting quite ripe + plus cozy bed & friendly person = so much goodness & contentedness i could burst.

this lavender lemonade (ambrosia!) is made like this (proportions are obviously very approximate):

steep a little satchet of pure lavender tea for a long time... in a smallish teapot. pour it into a pitcher with lots of ice cubes & add 1/2 cup sugar. stir well til dissolved. next add the juice of one nice big juicy lemon. stir the sort of greenish-looking tea until a magical colour change occurs. enjoy! for more people, make a full pot of tea & use another lemon... & enjoy extra much.