A Time to Leave

Time to leave again. You sense it, sort of welling up in your blood, like a change of seasons, like a scent in the air before it rains. And you go to the closet again, or dig under the bed, behind the couch – all the places you put your knapsacks and suitcases and sleeping bags – and you shake them out and you pack them up, then take a big breath and walk out the front door.

I tried to stay here. I lived for two and a half months in the old haunt of Kitsilano, Vancouver, but it wasn’t the same. It just didn’t sing anymore. It was quiet like a bedroom you’ve left long ago; neat and tidy, full of memories but too small for a future. I meant to go back to school. I really did. I was going to do a Master’s in English Literature, I was going to follow it up with a PHd, I was going to get a stable job, settle down, buy a car, find a girl, have kids … I don’t know. Something. But I walked into the classroom again and discovered that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to dissect books. I wanted to write them. So I walked out again, right back out. It took me all of Labour Day weekend to decide, and there was no looking back after that.

I bought a notebook. I bought a guitar. I wrote, I played. Sometimes people called, but mostly they didn’t. Sometimes I went out, but mostly I stayed home. On good days I wrote a lot. On less good days I watched old episodes of ‘Lost’ on my computer, one after the other. My money slowly leaked away, and I knew, as I’d known ever since I turned my heel on the university doorstep, that I’d be leaving again.

But not just yet.

My friend Jesse called in October. His baby girl was sick. Sick unto death and she would not live long. I moved out of my apartment to save money and planned to go see him, see her, hold her life in my hands while I could. I lived in my old bedroom at my parents’ house, fell asleep looking at places in the wall where I’d put my 15 year-old fists in times of frustration and rage. Finally I went to New Mexico, to see the little girl before she left us all behind.

Eva Tallulah is a pretty, tiny, ancient newborn, her whole life lived in a few short months – a year at most – her time stretched thin on her tiny frame. People look at her and say that she is not quite fully in her earthly body, that she is halfway to heaven already. I don’t know. She cries when her diaper is wet, she likes to have her bottom patted. She waves her arms around and kicks her legs and looks darling in her little-girl clothes. She is with us, but her life is held by some Mystery, some secret whispered where such things are whispered: the last sunset of summer, the first chill of fall, the hint of snow in the air, buds on the apple tree in spring. Life, death, and life again. When she leaves us she will go blameless and innocent, having touched the earth briefly like heaven’s kiss. When she goes there will not be a dry eye in the house.
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A SONG FOR EVA TALLULAH

Eva, you are snowflakes and lacework;
a silver spider’s thread,
and your tiny soul holds more of
eternity than we – caught
earthside – can imagine.

For you know what we only dream of
and long for:
a Mother, a Father, and Arms
that do not let go.

You will not grow old or drift slowly,
as we do.

While children play on the grass,
slide down slides
swing from monkey bars;
while their hearts break in two
and repair again,
Your voice will sprinkle their laughter,
you will glow in their eyes
and glisten their tears.

Because, littlest one, you’ve
found a short-cut Home.

And whatever else heaven is,
it will now also be a little girl
on a tire swing tied to
the strongest tree,
laughing, pushed higher and higher
by the Hand of God,

Waiting for the rest of us to join in.
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I’m on a plane now to London. From there I will go to Pakistan, to the long-contested area of Kashmir, ancient and beautiful, where I will do what I can to help the victims of the earthquake of October 8th last year. With me are my notebooks, and a new small guitar for traveling. I can feel the wind in my hair again, smell the clean scent of the road after the rain. There is a year full of words and adventures and songs ahead of me. I feel better now than I’ve ever felt, I think – or maybe feelings are just like that, the same old ones coming like new every time. Maybe joy, like pain, is always a surprise when it comes. So breathe deep. Time to leave again.

(For those of you who need more detail and less poetry, I’m going to Pakistan as the Logistics Co-ordinator for Tearfund, a UK-based evangelical humanitarian organization. There is a link to their website on this blog – Research Judicious Sites. Our programme has two phases: the first, which will be well underway when I arrive is emergency shelter distribution to help earthquake victims in the mountains survive the winter; the second will begin in March and involves rebuilding water systems and sanitation facilities in the villages around Bagh, in the Pakistani-administered area of Kashmir.

And the photo above is of my niece, Birgitte, running along the top of the dyke in Glenn Valley, three days after Christmas.)