meditation.

decided to walk home from work tonight; queen and bathurst to parliament and gerrard.
(38 minutes!)
(chuckle. timing myself on an aimless meander even...of Course.)

started with a glorious evening...sat in on "poochwater" (play presently at passe muraille) and, as the inertia housed in 18 patrons filed out of the theatre i was just incredulous. HOW...no, better yet, WHY...WHY?!? GO TO THE THEATER AT ALL WHEN ONE HAS MADE A STAUNCH DECISION TO REMAIN UNMOVED?!?!? WHY?!?!GAH!
i'm not talking about people watching a bad play they have no interest in...i'm talking about a Good play, a Solid play, well written, Fantastic characters... not universe shattering, But, for that 70 minutes, Completely engaging. and a house of 18 patrons, letting loose the occasional errant titter, then allowing it to be quelled almost immediately by the mournful weight of a 158 seat house with only about 10% of its seats occupied.

people become determined, i guess, that they shouldn't be heard...no laughing, no engaging, at any cost. that would draw attention to them, like it would work against the production. it makes me Crazy. had i thought of it at the time, i would have stood up during the curtain call, turned around to everyone sitting behind me and yelled "Wake up, you bastards, Respect these actors, Respect this work! or Don't Come Back!"
sigh.

an empty bar post-show, of course, and i took the moment to revel in my day: i had regular wednesday volunteership at my little publishing office, sorting catalogues for hours (Christ), and then assigned the writing of an april fools letter to the indigo head office. i was ready to Maim someone with the futility of it all until my boss, most likely feeling my despondency, proffered a copy of "jonathan strange and mister norell" as reward.
(yes, i have enough books. i Do. i Know. but what can i say? i'm a sucker for anything of verbose quality insinuated between soft covers).

then convened to execute one half of a barter with Brennan to get slides done in exchange for web-sitely favours, and how Glorious it feels (i don't do this often, if at all) to hand off a job you are Completely incapable of (copy work) to someone who's Amazing at it, and to feel this Utter relief and awe, that you can get something you need without having to suffer through doing it yourself, and you can return the favour in kind, but differently (inasmuch as the skill is different) and how Cool that is.

and then i went to work, and Then i thought about how frustrating it is to be around a person where your heart literally Inflates as a natural reaction to their presence, and knowing that you can no longer act on it (for practical reasons) but you still can't ignore it (for Completely Impractical reasons) and what the HELL to do?
we humans have figured Everything out, Everything, but we have No idea how to handle this conundrum.
is the healthy thing to ignore this feeling? to say to oneself: "i've walked away, i have no right to nostalgia."
no. i don't feel it is. (that's probably selfish) (shrug)
but to acknowledge this inflated heartiness (sic) and then not act on it seems just as irresponsible, or dishonest.
GAH. this is not the first instance of this in my life. Get On with it.

four of us lollygagging at the bar in an otherwise empty theatre somehow got into a discussion about grief, about the world's inability to allow us our grief, to allow us to be sad without feeling guilty or being worthy of remonstration for going public about it, and then Mark suddenly talked about his training as an international care-giver, on call for an obligatory three weeks if there should be a national disaster where people are in need of emotional support and counselling. and this is a Real job in the world. FANTASTIC!
and then i thought maybe the world was doing better than i thought...

and then, two blocks from my home, i approach a huge area bound in yards and yards of police tape, and a melancholy (and very probably bored to tears) officer beckons to me, saying i have to cross on the north side of the tape...there has just been a shooting, some crack head, no, no one's fine, he died.

and my heart just Capsized. Just Like That.
Physically Capsized.