not a warrior anymore

photo by: aswirly

Tomorrow, at approximately 10:30 p.m., I will be celebrating my birthday -- the big 55.

I treated myself to a psychic reading today, so I am going to get all metaphysical ... which, actually, I do a lot anyway.

Jesse the channeler read my cards and I did like his reading. He told me my number was 10 (never been told a number before) -- the number of someone who looks out at the world through an observational eye -- someone on a soul quest. (Just realized my new age adds up to 10, as does my birthdate, the 28th.)

I have been a warrior in many past lives he said, and have just recently put this sense of power-in-play behind me. I've maintained a centre through strong changes. Recently, the shift to this centring has come from a childlike, rather than a warrior, position.

He says it may be why I chose Canada for this life -- to get away from battling. (I do believe in reincarnation and will probably be writing more about this.) I asked him if he thought I might move to Europe. He pulled out a card and said I had been intentionally breaking away from my moorings, and mixing things up.

Right now, I am facing a clean slate, and it is not clear where I am heading, but to be open to it with the playfulness of a child. I have been disciplined all my life, even as a child, and I have begun to face -- even serious matters -- in a more lighthearted manner. (Ignoring my last post, I guess.

Though I have almost given up on the romantic idea of finding a life partner, the cards, he says, tell me not to give up on that idea yet. At the same time, pointing to a card with a bamboo tree, on it, he says I have begun to stop comparing my life to that of other women, or other people. (In other words, releasing the romantic notion of husband, children, grandchildren -- and realizing that my often solo path is as valid in worth.) And to totally mix metaphors -- an oak doesn't even think of being a bamboo, or vice versa.

However, I don't think of myself as a bamboo tree, or perhaps any kind of tree. I suppose, if anything, I have associated myself with the chrysanthemum flower, which blooms vividly in the fall after the flowers of summer have gone -- a salutation in rhythm with the changing colours of the trees.

I have been packing things up, he says, getting ready for the next stage.

Not a bad way, at all, to start a new year.

nimby

Photo by: Tampen


... not in my backyard ...

or, more accurately, in my backyard, in my building, in my neighbourhood ...

This neighbourhood was sketchy when I moved here almost five years ago to go to Ryerson. (Hard to believe it has been that long.)

But lately, its dark side has been weighing heavily on my mind.

The transvestites that come out late at night on the short block of Homewood have, over the years, been getting scarier and scarier. In fact, when I first moved here they were dressed to the nines and passed easily for 'ladies' of the night.

Now, assuming they are different people -- but perhaps not -- they are emaciated and desperate-looking. I know this because I return home from work around 2:30 a.m. and drive by them every night to get into my building.

I have a particular image in my mind I can't shake. Weeks ago, on a particularly bitterly cold and windy winter night, I turned a corner and a man stepped out in front of my car, his thin long coat held open to reveal a thinness barely covered by a bikini.

Last weekend, while walking down my building's stairwell as a form of exercise, I made it half way down when I came across someone sleeping on a landing.

There are condos going up in the neighbourhood, but in contrariness, the street people seem worse off. Recently, police arrested almost 300 in a sweep of Cabbagetown. In the process, they seem to have swept up the local beggars, too.

More and more I find myself wanting to get out of the city. That's sad. I feel guilt about it, too -- as if I'm closing my eyes and taking the easy way out.

I don't know where I'm heading to either at this point, though I feel like Toronto is a transition to somewhere. Somewhere green and idyllic and romantic? Is such idealism even socially responsible? It all nags at me and I don't have any neat answers for how cruel life can be for many people.

On another note, however, friends called on Friday and we spent a lovely afternoon and evening yesterday -- went to the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art and then to the cinema to see Run, Fat Boy, Run -- a very funny movie that made me laugh out loud. Priceless things I really needed -- friendship and laughter -- still in this backyard.

I need to keep the friendship and laughter but will probably have to get a new backyard.