pen pals

when i was 9 years old, i had my first penpal. her name was cheryl and she lived in milton ontario which is mere hours away from me. she was a friend of my cousin's. and we wrote each other letters and it was fun. 

when i was 12, i got my first real penpal. her name was roselyn and she lived in zimbabwe. we wrote to each other for years. her letters were the highlight of my month. she once sent me a necklace ... i still have it upstairs in a box. we wrote to each other until i was 18, when i told her that i was a lesbian and she began to pray for my soul. and then she stopped writing. 

when i was 15, i had a penpal in estonia. and one in michigan. and one in china. 

writing to someone far away was a great way for me to express my feelings safely. kind of like the opposite of therapy where i have to say things in person, face to face, with no distance. having a penpal meant being able to bare my soul without fear of rejection. until roselyn rejected me, but that was a cultural and religious difference. 

i would write pages and pages for each letter. my penpal in china was by far my favourite. he and i would exchange letters on airmail paper. i would tell him about my pathetic love life and he would give me advice, and then tell me about his. i came out to him as a lesbian and he accepted me. i have all of his letters upstairs in the same box as the necklace from roselyn. 

a few years ago, i started playing an online scrabble game with a random stranger. we played back and forth and chatted between turns. after a year or so of playing, we both admitted to each other that we were only continuing the game to stay in touch with each other and instead became facebook friends. i call her my digital penpal. 

i think this blog has become my digital penpal way of expressing myself. i am now at 16,500 page views, most of which come from russia. hello to my russian readers!! 

i can say here what i cannot express in person. i can ramble, or share, or give advice, or simply spill my guts. 

writing for me is a way of breathing. 

my readers, my audience, have become my penpals. so hello to you and thanks for reading. 

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

blogging

“Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud.”- Andrew Sullivan

why do i blog? 

i have found that my writing is often as much for me as it is for the people who read me. 

“Writing is the only way I have to explain my own life to myself.” 
― Pat Conroy

i work out a lot of the things in my head through my writing. it is how i sort out my ideas, thoughts, dreams, frustrations, and inspirations. and by sharing these things in a blog, maybe one person will take something from my sorting and apply it to their own life. i have to believe that someone is getting something from my writing as i am at nearly 14,000 page views. mostly from the USA and russia. 

“My blog is a collection of answers people don’t want to hear to questions they didn’t ask.” 
― Sebastyne Young

i do often wonder if i am babbling. or if people are skimming my writing and moving on to their next thing. my blog is a collection of thoughts on random ideas from my head. 

“She logged in and read a few of her old posts, smiling at the issues she had raged about and shaking her head at how some of the rants now seemed pretentious and judgmental. She had grown so much without even realizing she had. Mythili typed out the draft, spicing it up subtly and after a last read, she published it. Admiring the brand new post on her main page, she realized she missed writing. She had barely written anything since her last by-line. Typing this out, she felt like she was back with a long-lost friend who understood her. It was like snuggling up in a warm blanket when a thunderstorm raged outside.” 
― Shweta Ganesh Kumar

writing has got to be my most favourite thing to do. and sharing my writing makes me feel heard and understood. blogging is a way to share my writing easily. 

“In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others.” 
― Geoff Ryman

telling my story and sharing my SELF with others makes me feel like i matter. little insignificant me in this vast world. 

“Blogging isn’t about publishing as much as you can. It’s about publishing as smart as you can.” 
― Jon Morrow

lately i haven't been blogging daily. and that is because i don't want to write random posts that are meaningless. i wait until i have a topic that i feel passionate about discussing, or when someone gives me an idea, or when i have a burst of inspiration. sometimes it happens daily, and other times there is a space of time in between. 

writing is my passion. what is yours?

be kind to yourself,

xoxo

...

gigi

today i was given a gift. 

i was given a baggie with folded up letters in it. old letters. 19 year old letters. letters from my friend gigi who this blog is named after. letters and poems from my best friend who died when we were 18. 

getting these letters and reading them was like getting a piece of her back. 

i forgot how sardonic and sarcastic she was. i forgot how passion about social justice she was. i forgot how funny she was. i forgot the mundane things we talked about like English projects and hockey games. 

i wanted to share with you a couple of her poems. because i want to share a piece of her with you. here are her poems: 

So what?

Just because your heart is pumping doesn’t mean you’re living,

Just because you’ve made a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re successful,

Just because you give to charity doesn’t mean you’re generous,

Just because you’ve got a degree doesn’t mean you’re intelligent,

Just because you have everything you’ve ever wanted doesn’t mean you’re happy,

Just because someone says you’re better than mean doesn’t mean I should respect you,

Don’t try to buy me with your wallet, money hass no lasting value.

Don’t try to buy me with your superficial flattery, I can see right through it anyway.

Don’t try to make me jealous of your riches, I’m rich, I just dion’t have any money.

Don’t try to make me look uneducatied, there are some things you’’ll never learn in school.

Don’t try to tell me I can’t change the world, jjust watch and learn.

By Gigi

Friday may 13, 1994

The train moves forward

Travelling towards my dreams

I am left behind

When small

Tense, hunched over

Paper and pressing

Hard and carefully

To make words

Letters precise and deep

Within the page

Grammar corrected and

Stressed constantly

Unrelenting, ruthless

And then

Letters perfected

Personal style perfected

(big letters and circles over the “i”s)

Grammer perfected and enforced

And then

Rejection

            Messy scrawls written hurriedly

            Punctuation forgotten or ignored

            Incorrect grammar, rules scorned,

            Mocked; too rigid for

            Real expression

And then

For always

By Gigi

November 7, 1995

this is the last thing she ever wrote. she wrote it on the subway on the way to the party where she died:

Sunday, December 31, 1995

365 days in the year

5 hours left now

Somewhere in the world

It’s already

Next year

But not yet

Here

1996

The year of my graduation

I hope

And then?

New years eve

Is always a night

Of contemplation

Wondering

About accomplishments

Failures

Dreams

And unwanted realities

Life has too many variables

Or not enough

And what will 1996 bring?

What will tomorrow bring?

Tonight?

Is there merit in trying to guess

Or second guess?

And what are we counting down to?

Another ten seconds of our

Life go by

As we look to the next year,

Which will come if we

Watch the parties on T.V. or not.

A funny thing about those

Televised countdowns,

One station tells you

5 seconds left,

The other tells you 7.

Does it even matter?

i want to leave you with this poem about the light inside of us and how we can change the world. that's all she wanted to do; change the world. and change it she did. she changed me. she changed everyone she touched. and her light shines on inside those who loved her. be kind to yourself, and let your light shine ...

Personal light

Each of us has our own little light inside

And after we die various things can happen to that light:

Some lights fade away into the darkness and nobody notices or cares about the loss of their light

Some lights shine brightly, but nobody wants or needs their light and some

Even despise the suffering the light brings

Other lights shine with a loving glow that encompasses all

Anyone who has ever felt the warmth of these beams keep a little glimmer of

Them with them wherever they go

These lights remain brilliant and everlasting

Every person chooses which light will shine within themselves and the type

Of light that will shine after them

(you can) light up the world (forever)

By Gigi

Saturday June 11, 1994

pragmatism and romanticism ...

dear blog readers ...

"oh stuff and nonsense."

 "for mercy's sake."

everything i learned in my childhood, i learned from books. books were my friends, my teachers, my escape ...

anne of green gables, the brothers lionheart, the search for delicious, half magic, magic or not, the coocoo clock, michael's secret war: from my books i learned about life, love, death, family, empathy, loyalty, romance, and emotions. 

anne of green gables was the most influencial. anne shirley continues to be my guide, marilla has always been my moral compass, and rachel lynde my model of how not to be judgmental (and how even the ones with the sharpest tongues are capable of love).

"here sat marilla cuthbert, when she sat at all, slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously ..." - L.M. Montgomery

the juxtaposition of these voices in my head often guides me in my decision making. what would anne say? what would marilla say? what would rachel say?

marilla: you set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don't get them.
anne: i know. i can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. it's as glorious as soaring through a sunset ... almost pays for the thud.
marilla: well, maybe it does. but i'd rather walk calmly along and do without the flying and the thud.

balancing the pragmatism and romanticism of marilla and anne has always been my goal and challenge - to fly on the wings of anticipation while walking calmly ...

(marilla tries to cheer up anne with plum puffs)
anne: plum puffs won't minister to a mind diseased in a world that's crumbled into pieces.
marilla: well i'm glad to see that your dented spirits haven't injured your tongue.

to speak like anne or to speak like marilla? to write my romantical thoughts about the way that i see the world - filled with sunsets and magical unicorns in the clouds - or to write with the straightforwardness or marilla and rachel? 

sometimes when i read back my writing, i have marilla in my head saying, "oh stuff and nonsense."  and other times, all i have is anne and her words - the words that stay with me and guide me on my path. 

other times, like when i am standing in a long line and shifting on my feet, getting annoyed, i have rachel lynde in my ear saying, "patience has ceased to be a virtue." or when i have done something questionable and i am admonishing myself, rachel in my ear whispers, "that's what" or "mark my words." 

when i know that there is something going on, or there is gossip that i haven't heard, i find myself echoing rachel as matthew rides by in the buggy and saying, "oh, my afternoon is spoiled."

"this is the most tragical thing that has ever happened to me." - anne shirley

struggling with depression and anxiety has been extremely tragical. and i often have that sentence playing on a loop in my head. especially when i feel as though i am "in the depths of despair."

"my life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes. that's a sentence i read once and i say it over to comfort myself in these times that try the soul."

there are times when i get into a tornado of regrets - all the things i could have done, didn't do, wish i had done, tried to do and failed ... and i think of anne and how much she was loved. i wish i could be as loved as anne. the unconditional love that matthew had for her. the way he doted on her. it's what i dream a parent should be. 

and of course there is anne's "tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it." that i remind myself of each night as i think over all the things that went wrong. 

and i will leave you with this thought from anne, that sums up how i feel about this blog and about my writing, and about my need for connection ... 

"i know i chatter on far too much but if you only knew how many things i want to say and don't."

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

...

an open letter to libby oughton

dear libby, 

you probably don't remember me. 

i wouldn't have had the same impact on your life as you had on mine. 

my name is april and i interviewed you through email about 15 years ago for a paper that i was writing for a feminist literature class in university. we stayed in touch a bit after that. and then when i was in grad school, you were in town and we met for coffee at the second cup. 

it was both the most exciting day of my life, as well as the most humiliating. 

the kinder you were to me, the more miserable and negative back to you i was. 

and i have wanted, for the last 13 years, to apologize and to explain. but i never really knew how. 

i was severely depressed when i was living in halifax. i was lonely, and sad, and homesick. i couldn't seem to break my way into any community. i had no sense of belonging. 

i was lost. 

i spent my nights reading in bed and slept as much of the day as possible. reading would transport me into another world where i could escape the reality of my predicament. 

i had been accepted into a master's program in women's studies. i applied with the clearly laid out proposal that my research was in feminist lesbian geography. and i was accepted into the program based on that research. only i moved myself across the country and upon arrival on the very first day of classes i was told that there was no professor that had accepted me into their program who did any type of feminist geography nor lesbian geography, nor lesbian studies. 

which meant i had no adviser, no mentor, and no one to guide me in my research. add to that, a really mean roommate who treated me very badly, the fact that i was really sick, and had no friends .... it made for a lousy year and really lousy timing in meeting you. 

it is no excuse for how negative i was when we met. and yet it is an explanation for the terrible space that i was in. 

and as i navigate my way through the regrets of things that i did, or things that i didn't do, you and that meeting in the second cup are at the top of my list. 

your book made it's way to me because the universe wanted me to have it. it found me at a time in my life when i was discovering who i was (i am still discovering that) and the words spoke to me. the words were alive on the page. i carried that book with me ... ALL THE TIME AND EVERYWHERE. i wrote my own poetry all over the pages. the pages are worn and soft now. and i still read it. your words, meshed with mine. this morning, i sat and read your poetry. and once again i was filled with the joy of words. 

and the universe gave me the opportunity to meet you. to connect with you. to form a friendship forged in our mutual love of words, of feminism, of activism. and i was a sad little brat who spent the entire time complaining instead of learning from you. 

and i regret it every day. 

i hope that you can forgive my youth. i hope you can forgive that wasted opportunity. 

and i hope that this letter finds its way to you and finds you well. and that you will receive this letter with my love and affection. 

if it is meant to be, the universe will get this letter to you. 

with deepest regards, 

xoxo

...

owning my story

it has been a long time. a very, very long time. 

many things have happened. 

so many that i don't know where to begin. 

i have been reading a lot lately .... no ... i have been reading a LOT lately. mostly 3 authors: Geneen Roth, Brene Brown, and Allie Brosh. All incredible women with awesome things to say. 

Brown wrote:

i have been exploring my darkness and as i dig up my innermost fears and shames, i want to begin to share them. here. in this space. sharing my story is a way to own it. and owning it allows me to be vulnerable, which will allow me to make space for joy and hope and happiness.

and it is scary. and it will take me time. 

so please be patient with me. 

i hope that my story will help someone the way that the stories i am reading have been helping me. 

xoxo


.......