Sudden Downpour

Today was a day punctuated by sudden downpours. These were the kind of short-lived soakings that normally only happen in movies. They are the reason people speak about the heavens opening up. Part of me wanted to run out into the street, stand in the deluge and let myself get soaked. I don't know why.

Brought to you by water

My life: brought to you by water. 

Last night I killed my phone by managing to get it into a sink full of water. See, I was texting someone while walking through my apartment, I tripped on one of my shoes that was sitting by the door, launched the phone across the kitchen/entryway, and got it into the sink full of soapy dishwater. Impressive in its own way I suppose. If I had been playing basketball it would have been a great shot. Anyway. The phone is deader than dead and I am currently waiting for a rather important call. Cue panic.

It poured today. And I mean POURED. Which was actually okay with me. It meant that I didn't want to go outside so I stayed home, cleaned the whole apartment, did some work, had a wonderful Skype date with Audrey, and listened to Elenowen's new EP on repeat all day (currently available for a free download at Noise Trade).

The rain came to a stop for a while around dinner, so I popped outside to take some post-rain photos. Sunlight + Water = SPARKLE. It was rather lovely.

So aside from the whole phone fiasco, things are pretty good here right now.

Nights of Rain and Stars

I am naturally a night owl. I enjoy the middle of the night immensely. This is a good thing since I've become well acquainted with it in the recent past (not that we ever really lost touch, just that we were seeing less of each other than usual). So despite the fact that I've been swamped with and sleep deprivation is much harder to deal with when you can't have caffeine, sugar, or apples to help you stay awake, here are a few things I've been loving about these late nights.

1. Stars. You can actually see stars here, people. It's a crazy concept, I know, but so delightful.

2. Walking. I am really enjoying living somewhere that I can walk at midnight without fear of being stabbed or raped.

3. Rain. It's been rainy lately, and while this has its downsides, it means that the air is crisp and fresh when I'm wandering around at night.

4. An office. Or, rather, an office I can be in past 11. The building at King's closes at 11 and so you had to be out of the publications office by then. This was annoying. I now have a key card for the arts building and therefore have 24 hour access to my office. This rocks.

5. A library. Or, rather, a library open past 9. The King's library is great, but there is no way around the fact that it is a library at a small institution. It closes at 9. Not convenient for serious late-night work. The library here closes at 1 in the morning. This means that if I suddenly need a source from them, I can just pop on over at midnight. This also rocks.

6. Timezones. Most of my friends are still back in Alberta, which is three hours behind Nova Scotia. This means that even if I am awake at 3 in the morning, it is highly likely that someone back home will still be up and willing to chat. I always feel less desperate if I'm talking to someone while burning the midnight oil.

I need a bigger umbrella, and other lessons learned on a rainy day

It rained today. A lot. I know, big shock since I'm in Nova Scotia, but I'm still unused to rain kind of coming out of nowhere. Here are a few things I learned today, some because of the rain and some just coincidentally on the same day as the rain.

1. I need a bigger umbrella. I have a great little umbrella that folds up and fits in a purse, but it is kind of too small for the intense amounts of rain that fall from the sky here. It keeps my head dry, but that's about it. I keep passing people with these awesome giant umbrella and thinking, "Man, I need one of those. I wonder where you get one."

2. I need a rain coat. Like an actual, full-on, waterproof, hooded rain jacket. I know, it's shocking to hear me say that. I have actively fought against wearing rain jackets for as long as I can remember. They are generally kind of ugly and don't breathe really well so I get seriously sweaty. But there is just no way I am going to survive out here without one. That being said, does anyone know where I can get a good, cute rain jacket?

3. I need to invest in a second pair of wellies to leave in my office. See, the rain today didn't start until mid-afternoon so I was already on campus. I was wearing ballet flats, which really aren't the best footwear when the street has become more like a river. If I had an extra pair of wellies stashed in my office, I could just pop them on when there is a surprise rain storm.

4. I can't type the word "nature." This is a problem since my thesis is on the depiction of landscape and how it influences identity. I have to type "nature" fairly frequently. I keep typing "natuer." I finally set my Pages auto-correct to just change it automatically.

5. I can remind myself of why I'm here by simply reading Anne Michaels. All doubts that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing are immediately erased. Even if the stress remains.

Memory's heavy with the jewellery of rain

Skin Divers
Anne Michaels

Under the big-top
of stars, cows drift
from enclosures, bellies brushing
the high grass, ready for their heavy 
festivities. Lowland gleams like mica
in the rain. Starlight
soaks our shoes.
The seaweed field begs, the same
burlap field that in winter cracks with frost,
is splashed by the black brush
of crows. Frozen sparklers of Queen Anne's lace.

Because the moon feels loved, she lets our eyes
follow her across the field, stepping
from her clothes, strewn silk
glinting in furrows. Feeling loved, the moon loves
to be looked at, swimming
all night across the river.

She calls through screens,
she fingers a white slip in the night hallway,
reaches across the table for a glass.
She holds the dream fort.
Like the moon, I want to touch places
just by looking. To tell 
new things at three in the morning, when we're
awake with rain or any sadness, or slendering through 
reeds of sleep, surfacing to skin. In this room
where so much has happened, where love
is the clink of buttons as your shirt slides
to the floor, the rolling sound of loose change;
a book half open, clothes
half open. Again we feel
how transparent the envelope
of the body, pushed through the door 
of the world. To read what's inside 
we hold each other 
up to the light. We hold
the ones we love or long 
to be free of, carry them 
into every night field, sit with them
while cows slow as ships
barely move in the distance.
Rain dripping from the awning of stars.

Waterworn, the body remembers
like a floodplain, sentiment-laden,
reclaims itself with every tide.
Memory terraces, soft as green deltas.
Or reefs and cordilleras - 
gathering the world to bone.

The moon touches everything
into meaning, under her blind fingers,
then returns us to cerulean
aluminum dawns. Night,
a road pointing east.
her sister, memory, browses the closet
for clothes carrying someone's shape. 
She wipes her hands on an apron
stained with childhood, familiar smells
in her hair; rattles pots and pans 
in the circadian kitchen.
While in the bedroom of a night field,
the moon undresses; her abandoned peignoir
floats forever down.

Memory drags possessions out on the lawn,
moves slowly through wet grass, weighed down
by moments caught in her night net, in the glistening 
ether of her skirt. The air alive,
memory lifts her head and I nearly
disappear. You lift your head, a look I feel
everywhere, a tongue of a glance,
and love's this dark field, our shadow web 
of voices, the carbon-papter purple
rainy dark. Memory's heavy with the jewellery
of rain, her skirt heavy with beads of mercury
congealing to ice on embroidered branches - 
as she walks we hear the clacking surf
of those beautiful bones. Already love
so far beyond the body, reached only
by way of the body. Time is the alembic
that turns what we know
into mystery. Into air,
into the purple stain of sweetness.
Laburnum, wild iris, birch forest so thick 
it glows at night, smells that reach us
everywhere; the alchemy that keeps us
happy on the ground, even if our arms embrace
nothing, nothing: the withdrawing
trochee of birds. We'll never achieve escape
velocity, might as well sink into wet 
firmament, learn to stay under,
breathing through our skin.
In silver lamella, in rivers
the colour of rain. Under water, under sky;
with transparent ancient wings.

Tonight the moon traipses in bare feet,
silk stockings left behind
like pieces of river.

Our legs and arms, summer-steeped
slapped damp
with mud and weeds.

We roll over the edge into the deep field,
rise from under rain,
from our shapes in wet grass.
Night swimmers, skin divers.


I know it's a long poem (kudos to you if you read the whole thing), but I am struck deeply by the intimate connection she makes between rain and memory and love. It is so beautiful, and holds so much of how I feel about rain. It is supposed to be rather rainy for the next week or so, and I am hoping that despite the insanity of my life I will have some time to simply luxuriate in that nostalgic, beautiful, loving sensation.

Storm sky of green marble

from What the Light Teaches
Anne Michaels

     10

For years I've driven towards you in spring rain,
storm sky of green marble,
slow traffic a caravan of swinging lanterns,
windshield wipers like clock hands.
Poems by Tsvetaeva on the seat beside me,
flowers in wet paper.

As the hours pass, the hard seeds in my heart
soften and swell as I think of your kitchen
with its stone floor
like a summerhouse in Peredelkino,
and of Mandelstam, exiled to Yelabuga on the Kama:
"if you must leave the city,
it's best to live near a river."

You fly out of the darkness at me,
twisting open the tin sky.

The thunderstorm becomes other storms:
darkness steeping like tea above Burnside Drive,
with its slippery crease of rusted leaves;
or the night on High Street, rain
streaming like milk down the windshield
the moment the streetlights clicked on.
I think of young Akhmatova,
under a black umbrella with Modigliani,
reading Verlaine in the Luxembourg.
All the languages they spoke -
Russian, Italian, French -
and still, their lovemaking was with roses!
Language is not enough
for what they had to tell each other.

Never to lose this joy,
driving to one who awaits my arrival.

Soon I will be standing on your porch, dripping
with new memory, a thin dress soaked with May rain.

Rain that helps one past grow out of another.


Yes, Anne Michaels two days in a row. What can I say? I adore her writing. And the opening stanza of this poem is so well-suited to the weather lately.

Rain that never leaves your bones

Into Arrival
Anne Michaels

It will be in a station
with a glass roof
grimy with the soot 
of every train and
they will embrace for every mile
of arrival. They will not
let go, not all the long way,
his arm in the curve
of her longing. Walking in a city
neither knows too well,
watching women with satchels
give coins to a priest for the war veterans;
finding the keyhole view of the church
from an old wall across the city, the dome
filling the keyhole precisely,
like an eye. In the home
of winter, under an earth
of blankets, he warms her skin
as she climbs in from the air.

There is a way our bodies
are not our own, and when he finds her
there is room at last
for everyone they love,
the place he finds,
she finds, each word of skin
a decision.

There is earth
that never leaves your hands,
rain that never leaves
your bones. Words so old they are broken
from us, because they can only be 
broken. They will not
let go. Because some love
is broken from love,
like stones
from stone,
rain from rain,
like the sea
from the sea.


This poem is exceptionally beautiful. The sweetest love. The deepest connection to each other, to history, to our own personal worlds. I'm basking in this piece. Luxuriating.

Also, the kind of greeting described in the first stanza is something I hope to experience one day. Whether in a train station or airport, I've always wanted that. "They will embrace for every mile." Lovely.

This is order, this clutter that fills clearings between us

Rain Makes Its Own Night
Anne Michaels

Rain makes its own night, long mornings with the lamps left on.
Lean beach grass sticks to the floor near your shoes,
last summer's pollen rises from damp metal screens.

This is order, this clutter that fills clearings between us,
clothes clinging to chairs, your shoes in a muddy grip.

The hard rain smells like it comes from the earth.
The human light in our windows, the orange stillness
of rooms seen from outside. The place we fall to alone,
falling to sleep. Surrounded by a forest's green assurance,
the iron gauze of sky and sea,
while night, the rain, pulls itself down through the trees.


The other night I stopped at Chapters with a couple of friends and discovered that their poetry section has expanded! I mean, it's still not huge, but it is certainly improved from the measly two shelves it usually is. Of course, I had to treat myself to some new books. Glorious. Simply glorious. It's been raining lately. There is something nice about weather like this. It's relaxing and contemplative. Life seems a bit slower when it's rainy; there's space to breathe and room to think. Rain and poetry are an excellent combination.

Ten Things...Rain, Fog, and Longing

It has been a grey, rainy, cold autumn here in Edmonton. It makes sense given that we also had a cold, rainy summer, but it is still kind of odd. I honestly don't remember the last time it was quite so rainy all the time. This is probably because I've grown up during drought years so everybody is always talking about how we don't have enough rain. Now suddenly it is raining all the time. I probably say this every time I talk about rain or fog or grey days, but this is the kind of weather that makes me think of Nova Scotia and Ireland. Even though it definitely gets a little bit depressing after a while, there is something that I kind of love about it. This week's Ten Things is an homage to this kind of weather.

1. Let it Rain
2. Oblivion
3. Drip, drip, drop, little [June] shower
4. Rain, rain on my face
5. "Water makes many beds"
6. Lost in the Fog
7. Splish splash drip drop goosh goosh goosh TIDAL WAVE
8. The Barra MacNeils
9. On the Inside Looking Out
10. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Let the Rain

Let the Rain
Sara Bareilles

I wish I were pretty

I wish I were brave

If I owned this city

I'd make it behave

If I were fearless

Then I'd speak my truth

And the world would hear this

That's what I wish I'd do

If my hands could hold them you'd see

I'd take all these secrets in me

And I'd move and mold them to be

Something I'd set free

I want to darken in the skies

Open the floodgates up

I want to change my mind

I want to be enough

I want the water in my eyes

I want to cry until the end of time

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down tonight

I hold on to worry so tight

It's safe in here right next to my heart

Who now shouts at the top of her voice

Let me go, let me out, this was not my choice

And I always felt it before

That the world was filled with much more

Than the drowning soul I've learned to be

I just need the rain to remind me

I want to darken in the skies

Open the floodgates up

I want to change my mind

I want to be enough

I want the water in my eyes

I want to cry until the end of time

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

I want to let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Let the rain come down

Make a brand new ground

Let the rain come down

Tonight

Sara Bareilles released her second album, Kaleidoscope Heart, a week ago. Since I positively adore her music I purchased it the day it came out and have been listening it to obsessively ever since. Let me tell you, it was totally worth the wait. Gorgeous vocals, incredible instrumental arrangements and lyrics that, like all good music, capture things that are inexplicable for most of us and put them into poignant words. Plus there is a bit of an irreverence, a certain cheekiness and who-cares-what-you-say attitude, in some of her songs that is just so excellent and empowering. Anyway, "Let the Rain" has quickly become one of my favourite songs on the album. It expresses so perfectly the way that I often feel and have been feeling a bit the past week. Also, it suits the weather here in Edmonton since lately it has been grey and rainy.

I took this picture on an excursion to Lacombe a couple days ago. I went down with one of my roommates who was picking some stuff up from home. They live on a farm and have some awesome gardens. I spent a good chunck of time wandering around the grounds taking pictures, so you will probably be seeing quite a few of them on here. It was spitting on and off on Saturday so there were lovely little water droplets clinging to all of the plants. I really like how they look against the dark leaves.

Drip, drip, drop, little [June] shower

If April showers bring May flowers, then what do June showers bring? This has certainly been a rather dreary spring so far. I took these pictures last week while wandering my mom's garden. The lily-of-the-valley are so lovely. These ones are quite short and grow really close to the ground so I actually just stuck my camera down and snapped some shots. I think they turned out rather well. (My other option was prostrating myself in the muddy garden and frankly I wasn't feeling that hardcore.)

By the way, stay tuned for some changes to the blog's appearance.

Splish splash drip drop goosh goosh goosh TIDAL WAVE

So there was no tidal wave (it would have to be one mighty big tidal wave to get all the way to Edmonton...), but I was trying to think of a rain/water related title and that good old camp song popped into my head. Just think of all the brain space I could clear out if I forgot all the lyrics and actions to such songs. However, I think that they are forever burned into my memory. I will be 90 years old and completely gaga, unable to remember anything or anyone but I will still be able to sing all those camp songs and do the actions to them. Anyway, today was a rainy day. In theory I'm okay with rainy days, but for some reason I was just going stir crazy today. My plan for the afternoon fell through and so the day felt incredibly long. I managed to come up with stuff to do this evening though, which helped immensely. In order to curb my boredom I decided to wander the garden taking pictures this afternoon. It had been raining really lightly for most of the day so everything was wet and grey, but I kind of like how some of the images turned out. This is one of them. Little tiny rain drops caught on the leaves of one of my mom's plants. It seems to capture the day quite well.

Rain, rain on my face

It has been grey and rainy and rather blah for a few days now. All this would not be such an issue except for the wind. Ah well. Nothing to be done about it. The dreary weather always makes me think about the East Coast and how much I love it there. This picture is from the last time I was in Nova Scotia. Rain on the car window as we drove along the highway. Perhaps if it is still rainy tomorrow I'll have to go out and try and get some good shots to share here.

At least the inclement weather means that I don't want to be outside. I managed to get a good amount of unpacking done today. All of my clothes and shoes now have homes and I have made a good start on the unpacking of books. If you know me then you know that all three of those categories of belongings are not small in my world. I have a lot of shoes. And clothes. But books are my real weakness; I just can't stop buying them. Speaking of which. I just finished Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner. Fantastic read. Very postmodern in the way it is structured and has some major elements of magic realism going on, but compelling and lovely. It kind of reminded me of Green Grass Running Water by Thomas King, which we read in the second half of my Canadian Lit course. Only, I think Nikolski is better. Hopefully tomorrow I can tackle the rest of my books and get a start on the random items I have have. One of the fun things about cleaning my room is finding old cards and letters. I found a couple from when my friend was living in France for a year. And a couple of old birthday cards from my best friend, which made me smile because of how much we have changed and how true her predictions that we would be friends for life are. Even though we have both changed so much, and we have gone through periods of being in ridiculous fights, we're still best friends. It's nice to have someone you can count on for that, someone that you know you can always talk to about anything. I also stumbled across my journals from YLP, which made for a fun trip down memory lane. They also made me terribly glad to not be a teenager anymore. Man was that an awkward phase of my life.

Yesterday was disgusting. On the bright side, I got a fantastic new haircut. On the down side NO ONE is hiring for the summer. I'm waiting to hear back from a couple places, but by and large people wouldn't even take my resume. Gah. Oh well, I'm sure everything will work itself out. The place that I really really really want to work took my resume so I'm hoping for a call from them some time soon.

*Title comes from the lyrics to "Flood" by Jars of Clay

Little Bits of Joy

This is not the photo I wanted to put up today, but I couldn't find the one I was looking for so this is the one you guys get. It still fits with where I'm going though. Little spiderweb with raindrops caught all over it. It's one of those details that caught my eye. I'm big on taking close up photos because I think there is something wonderful about taking the time to notice the details of life. I love finding those small things that are beautiful, those tiny moments that make me smile (either out of amusement or contentment). I think I need to take my own advice today. Finals begin on Wednesday and I have officially entered the blind panic stage. I need to remember to stop and think about the good things in my life sometimes. Like, Friday night I went to improv with some friends. And it was genuinely fun and made me laugh harder than I have laughed in quite a while. Or the fact that it has been gorgeous all weekend. Or that the Ballyhoo came out on Friday and I had three pictures published in it and got to spend some time luxuriating in the incredible artistic talents of some of my friends. So, as exams approach, I am promising myself that I will take time to notice the tiny rain-covered spiderwebs in life and take the time to look at them and smile, to find the beauty in the midst of the chaos.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I figured that in honor of today it would be appropriate to share a photo from Ireland. I took this one looking out from one of the towers of Blarney Castle (and yes I have kissed the Blarney stone). It rained pretty much the whole time we were in Ireland (big shock, I know), but man was it a beautiful country. Definitely on my list of places that I must go back to.

It was actually kind of grey and rainy (well okay, it was more misty than rainy), which seemed incredibly appropriate for St. Patrick's Day. For all the waxing poetic about sunshine that I do, I actually really enjoy grey, rainy days sometimes. It smelled wonderful this morning and the air felt crisp and clean. Plus, when the weather is like this I like to imagine that I'm somewhere like Nova Scotia or Ireland. Perhaps that is weird, but it keeps me sane so I'm okay with it. Unfortunately, my St. Patrick's Day celebrations consist of paper writing. Since I'm not really one for crowds, beer, or drunk people this is mostly okay with me except for the fact that I am totally experiencing some major writer's block (although this blog entry seems to be coming together just fine). Oh well. Back to it!