My precious magical munchkin of sweet cutey cat-child, Ezmeralda, passed away early this morning. I recently moved from the countryside (on my family’s property) to the city, and after much deliberation, I brought her with me. We had fallen in love at first sight and it didn’t seem right to leave her behind.

I started training her on a leash, brought her to the vet for a full check up, and the vet even gave me some sedatives for her so the ride over wouldn’t be too traumatic. I made her a cat carrier out of a heavy machinery box and she tore through it shortly after we left and defiantly curled up behind the seat, where she was mostly content despite a few attempts to escape and get up to the front seat. She wasn’t loving the ride, though she didn’t cry out too much and was voraciously eating her snacks. And once we got to our destination, a quiet tree-bedecked street in Victoria, she seemed happy and just like herself, rolling around on the floor and sprawling out shamelessly looking for tummy pets. She wasn’t trying to get outside and I was spending nearly the the whole day with her for the first three days. The only thing I noticed that was off was that one day she puked a little bit, and she wasn’t eating as much as usual, though she was pooping and drinking water, so I figured things would sort themselves out as we settled in. If I’d noticed anything else that seemed off I would have taken her to the vet right away.

I came home last night (Day 4) after a few hours of checking my emails and grabbing some food. I was pretty burnt out and a little bit stressed out as Ezzie had started pooing in a weird spot in the depths of the basement and I wanted to block it off, which would require moving other people’s possessions. I had to call the person I was subletting from and it seemed like a big annoyance for her. So I decided not to allow Ezzie downstairs in the basement area where we’d been crashing out together since we arrived. I hung out with her in the living room upstairs for a while and she jumped up on the couch and gave me cuddles and I told her how much I love her like I always do. I had some water on the floor in a cup that I was drinking out of and she took a big drink from there so I felt like she was doing good.

I was still adjusting to the move and went downstairs and was crying for a long time and then eventually crashed out. I woke up at around 2:30 am and went upstairs. I was looking around for Ezzie and saw a dark shadow on the living room floor. I turned on the light and was looking to see if she was breathing and when I tried to wake her up, she wouldn’t wake up. I knew that she was dead and I starting nervously pacing around and was hyperventilating. Everything in my vision started to look like it had a veil of old TV static draped over top of it and my brain was spinning, not knowing what could have happened. There was no puke around her and no signs of her being distressed. She was in her usual hang out position. Her body was limp and her eyes were open. I thought maybe I could give her CPR and tried to pry her mouth open but I could see inside that the flesh was was pale and lifeless.

I felt overcome with despair and shame as to how she could have died and felt like something about the move must have brought it on, or maybe she had eaten some poison from the basement, or some gnarly dead thing. I really didn’t know. Maybe it was shock? She seemed so healthy though, and there were no obvious signs of a cat ready to die. And she seemed extra happy to have her own big space to play around in without dogs sniffing her butt and other cats yowling at her when she was eating.

I didn’t want to disturb anyone I knew in the middle of the night, so I called a crisis line because I was feeling like I might harm myself, and thankfully, the person I spoke to was great. Other times when I’ve called help lines in the past I haven’t connected with the person on the other line, but this time I really did, and they were very compassionate. They suggested that I take my cat to an emergency vet just in case, and I decided to do that, even though I knew that she was dead when I picked her up because she had already started to smell and leak fluids. Though I was thinking that it was best that I went somewhere where they would understand what I was going through.

When I carried her body into the passenger seat of the truck, putrescence was soaking in to my wool jacket and my fingers were slick with fluid. I wrapped her in a an old faux fur coat I had and set off in to the night.  When I turned around the corner following the directions on my crude flip phone to the 24-hour vet, a beat up Volvo turned left as I was turning right and I looked into the windshield at the driver: a person bedecked in stark black and white goth makeup - a ghastly grim reaper in chiaroscuro on their way back to Hellheim after plucking the spirit of my precious cat-child from the physical realm.

I got lost on the way there and almost drove out to the wilderness to bury her myself but in the end I turned around and came back, as I didn’t know the area, didn’t have a smart phone, the truck I borrowed can’t do off-roading anymore, and I knew that I was too fucked up to carry out such a task. I wouldn’t have had that kind of common sense a few years ago.

When I got to the vet they said that they wouldn’t be able to determine any cause of death at that point, but they could take her and cremate her, and I knew that was the best thing to do. They were very kind to me and gave me an examination room to wait in, as they were in the middle of euthanizing another cat. I called my aunt who lives back East as I thought she might be awake, and she was, and she understood what I was going through, and she talked to me for a while about her own extreme grieving when losing her cat. I was breaking down on the phone and so glad to have someone to talk to.. it was too fucked up to see Ezzie so full of life and as cute as ever one moment and then a few hours later be carrying her dead body into the truck.

I decided to do a group cremation because Ezzie was quite social and it was a lot cheaper, and I also purchased a ceramic paw print from the death menu. I wasn’t able to carry her out of the truck and into the vet’s office as I was too despondent so I went into the bathroom and bawled my eyes out some more as they took her out of the truck. I waited until I was calm and when I came out of the bathroom the receptionist told me that I could leave when I wanted to but could also stay longer if I needed to, and they made sure that I had support for myself following my departure. I was so thankful for how kind they all were in spite of being on the night shift and dealing with other clients.

I drove around aimlessly and then came upon some guys in front of a 7-11 and bought a cigarette off of one of them. He told me that he had just got into a big fight with his housemate and came outside to get some fresh air. I told him that my cat had just died and he told me that smoking a cigarette wouldn’t help me feel any better. I bought him some Noodles from the 7-11 and when we departed he gave me a flavoured inhaler and told me to use that instead the next time I felt like a cigarette. He also told me about what it’s like to be injected with Naloxone, and that you go through instant withdrawals and might attack the person who gives it to you. We talked about addiction and trauma and he gave me some eye-shadow and told me I was a nice person and that if everyone treated addicts with open hearts and kindness we wouldn't be in the crisis that we’re in. I wish I could consistently be that open and empathic with others.

I only smoked half of the cigarette and then drove down to the ocean and found a spot to watch the sky brighten and hear the waves crash up onto the shore. Even in the dark before the dawn there were people all about; and I felt a sinking sadness in my solar plexus seeing people looking joyful and energetic, and running around with their lively incarnate pets. I felt like a black smear on the ocean side.

A black clad man wandered up to the garbage can near where I was parked smoking a cigarette and took a video of himself with the shadowed ocean behind him with his cell phone and then sauntered off un-selfconsciously, crossing in front of my truck. A police car came by and circled around, yet thankfully didn’t harass me about being parked illegally.

I left the area and drove further along the ocean, gracing the edges of the Ross Bay cemetery, and then I turned around and came back along the water again. I saw a tall, skinny skateboarder practicing ollies on the curb with a bandana over his face and we caught each other’s eyes briefly. I was pawing my tear stained face and saw further glimpses of him waving one of his long lanky arms at me from my rear-view mirror as he curved out into the street behind me. I thought about slowing down and seeing what he was on about but kept on driving.

I wasn’t sure if I could return to an empty sublet and had a mind to keep driving or to try and get a hold of someone to go visit but it wasn’t even 5:00am yet and everyone would be asleep for ages still. I ended up getting lost over and over until I finally found where I was staying.

I had gone out that afternoon and ended up at a Caribbean restaurant, and the man working there immediately started chatting me up and told me that “If you take on the whole world, you’re not loving yourself. You need to love yourself.” I knew he was right. He said many other things to me as well that were hard to hear but also right, like about how I sabotage my life and don’t respect myself enough. He also said something else that's haunting me: “A cat is not a human. You need human connections in your life.”

I was anxious and distraught that night when I came home, and just before bed, I did a tarot reading. I pulled the Death card and Ezmeralda perched upon the pile of cards, as she often does. That also haunts me. Was her death invoked or foretold?

I’m grieving hard. She was my closest friend and always around; and was the cutest, sweetest, most easy going cat I’ve ever had. I loved her so fucking much. I’m not okay. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’m in a daze. For a while I might think I’m okay and distract myself with science and trying to figure out what could have happened to her, and then the sludge of my sorrows pulls me down again and cracks me open like a frozen puddle being stomped on with a heavy boot, shattering into hundreds of sharp little pieces.

I think one of the hardest things about death is that unlike so many other things in the world, it’s non-negotiable. It’s just done. And when it happens suddenly, it blackens everything.

I know that there's a spirit world and I feel her here and I heard her little murmur from around the corner letting me know that she’ll be hanging around for a while.

My grief comes again and it reconnects me to other threads of unspent grief: my cat Misty that got run over when I was a kid, never grieving my cat Tara’s death, never grieving the death of my grandparents on my father's side whose loving spirits I've felt watching over me at so many times throughout my life.

I went out of my way to be the best cat-mom I could for Ezmeralda – and then in these last moments, I wasn’t there. Maybe that’s just what was meant to be? Because I’m not a godd and I don’t decide who lives and who dies or how long they'll live for or how they'll die. I’ve been a control freak over life and death, thinking I can somehow engineer it all to keep myself safe and protected from the sorrow of loss, and then I often miss out on what’s right in front of me because I’m living in a world of panic and anxiety. Losing friends to suicide and overdose can do that to you.

Ezzie came into my life and brought me so much joy. She was a silver haired, emerald eyed, fuzzy bear with a ton of sass and felt so comfortable in her skin. She was so content doing her cat things and rarely complained. I’m so thankful to have had her with me for this past year and a half and I’ll miss her so much.

Everything makes me cry: her food bowl, her leash, I see a cat face in the stains on the bathtub fixture as I soak in the porcelain womb, and I keep thinking she’s just around the corner somewhere. Or I feel the awkward eager wobble of her approaching me on the bed.

My head aches. I’m nauseous. I’m exhausted but I’m not doing anything. A walk up the stairs to pee feels like a 7 hour hike.

On a cosmic level, I think that part of her departing is about me needing to grow up and become a solid human. It’s something I’ve been avoiding for a very long time. I wanted to hide under the covers until the world became a place that I could deal with, but things just keep getting worse and worse with war and ecocide and all of the fucked up shit going on all over the place.

The tears that are falling are warmed through my heart and flow freely. I feel no anger or rage, just sadness.

I have so much to learn from Ezzie about taking it easy and going with the flow.

The rune I cast for this year was: Laguz.

I’m spaced out. I can’t eat. My jaw aches from being clenched. I’m overcome with guilt. Why did I leave where I was? I didn’t need to up-heave us. Why am I always doing things so hastily?? Why can’t I just fucking chill?? I’m always racing after the next thing, never happy where I am.

Or was Ezzie ready to go and part of our deep connection was that it would be fleeting?

I don’t know. I feel so fucked up. I don’t know how to reconcile this. How can I grow out of this and and heal rather than spiral deeper downwards?

I’m not drinking or doing drugs and that’s a really good thing. I’m reaching out to others and that’s also good. I’m allowing myself to feel all of the shit that’s coming up and sinking deep into myself so that’s good. I’m also resisting the urge to lean on others too much, and in the end, I decided to stay at this temporary home rather than seek out a friend or family member to go be with. I’m also resisting the urge to bolt. I’m in a new city and I don’t feel comfortable here, but I’ve uprooted myself from the comforts of my trailer in the forest, and it’s all gone now. I packed it all up and tucked it away or hauled it here with me. I can’t take the truck out to the forest anymore. I have to stay. Here. in. One., place, and . Not. Move. Until . This. Passes. There. Is. no. Escape.

I still can’t believe that this happened. I’m tired. I’m so tired. I don’t know what the fuck about what the fuck.

It’s been about 14 hours since I found her, I’ve been crying and crying and crying, about her, and then about everything else. I’ve blamed myself for so many deaths that have happened in my life.

If I'd gone to visit her when I was passing through town she wouldn’t have hung herself. I was distancing myself from her because her best friend was jealous of our friendship and I didn’t want to aggravate things anymore.

He OD’d because my love couldn't save him. Because I gave up on him. Because I wouldn’t give him a second chance when he opened up again years later. I didn’t know how deeply connected we were or how much I loved him until he was gone. Then I would have done anything to bring him back so we could be together. But I had tried everything already and it didn’t work. And I heard that the person who was dating him before he died said that he wouldn’t quit drugs and it sounded like she was on the same roller coaster ride I had been on with him.

I should have realized she was going through stuff. I thought I wasn’t hearing from her much because I had done something wrong or that she was mad at me. But really, she was suffering in silence. I would have done anything for her and been there for her. I didn’t know what was up and then when I did know it was too late. She died when I was on my way over. He drained her spirit little by little over the course of 12 years until there was nothing left of her. And even now, months later, he only speaks of himself. I realized how important it is to set oneself free of toxic people, and how they can be so manipulative and whittle away the hearts of the pure. I think she passed on when I was on my way over because she didn’t want me to see her the way she was. And she didn’t want me coming in and dragging her to the hospital. It was too late. She was done. She flies free now.

I thought I did everything right. It’s only a 3 hour drive, it’s not like I took her Nova Scotia. She had some heart murmurs in the past but this vet said that she didn’t notice anything this time. I gave her worms, tick and lice treatment. Rabies shot. Special treats to eat. She seemed so freaking happy when we got here, and I was amazed by how quickly she was settling in. It was annoying that she was pooping in sandy patches in the back of the basement but she’s an outdoor cat and I was just glad that her digestion was okay. She puked once. She even tried to eat her puke and I stopped her, so I didn’t think she was having big appetite issues or anything. She was eating a bit less than normal. She drank water that night.  She might not have been peeing though, there's was none in her litter box so I assumed she found some weird spot in the basement.

I loved her so much and I was constantly giving her hugs and pets. She would sprawl out everywhere and was always around and letting me know she was there with her cute little burbly sounds. I miss her so much. I can’t believe she’s gone. I’m a fucking wreck.

Four days. We were only here for 4 days. I thought I was stepping into new opportunities and a chance to break out of my rut, and now I’m in an even deeper depression and alone and isolated in a new place. If I was a more solid and grounded person and had just stayed where I was, maybe this would never have happened and I would still be getting woken up every morning with her chirpy sounds and glowing eyes? I have a good friend here and we’re keeping in touch though she just moved as well and is super busy right now - and I lost all of my other phone contacts when I got a new SIM and my Signal isn’t working anymore. I really don't have anyone to reach out to here.

I do feel safe here. I hear the sounds of the neighbours with their new baby - washing machine, baby laughing, baby crying, dryer, baby laughing, washing machine, smoothie machine, baby crying, dryer, baby laughing.. it’s comforting. Birds fly around outside the window. The neighbour across the street gave me quail eggs.

I looked in the fridge and felt like I was going to puke just thinking about eating. My ears are ringing. My head is splitting open. I’m in and out of the portals of pain and regret.

I’m trying not to think about Ukraine. I can’t right now, it’s too much. All of my energy is going in to not falling apart.

Avoiding the crusty depths of grief again by escaping into information overload.

I can’t keep punishing myself for being a human being. We’re here on this planet to learn and grow and make mistakes. Ezzie was totally and utterly adored by me and we had a very special bond with each other. I took really good care of her and there’s no way I could have known that this was coming.

How much are we in control of what happens in our lives and how much is circumstance? Invoking or predicting? My mom said it sounds like a heart condition that could have come up at anytime and says it was better that it happened when she was with me and not outside or at their place. My mom is in deep grief right now from my aunt passing and it would have been really upsetting for her.

I can be inspired by what a cute little dork Ezzie was and how much love and respect she had for herself in spite of all that she’d been through. And her strength and endurance and enduring sensitivity. And her unconditional love.

I have to stand alone and love and support myself no matter what. I have no other option anymore. It’s like when I reached a crossroads with my substance use, or when Sarah in The Labyrinth is being held afloat by the creepy sock hand puppets: do you want to go up or down? There's only 2 ways to go.. 12 years ago I chose to bring myself out of the pits of ultimate darkness. And now I’m in another type of void - the void inside of the void.

Substance abuse is a mask for all of the shit we don’t want to deal with and when the distractions get torn away, there’s a lot of pain and darkness to confront.

I think that a big part of our collective struggle as a race is that we have an inner self-destructive wounding that gets projected out into the world around us in the form of war, genocide, and environmental devastation. It all pours out from the black rivers of our self-loathing.

The crossroads that I've kept coming to and then sidelining away from for the past 10 years is the self destruction crossroads - the I hate myself and I want to die and fuck this place and fuck humanity and I've had enough and burn it all to the ground Or?.. What’s the other option? Loving oneself and forgiving oneself on a deep level and doing the same for others is not fucking easy. Misanthropy and self-hatred is so cozy. It’s a warm morphine bath to disappear into in before setting the world on fire and burning through everything you love and care for.

Loving myself unconditionally and extending that to humanity as a whole is hard and it fucks me us inside and feels very uncomfortable and awkward because it’s something I really don't know how to do. We’ve been destroying shit and fucking shit up for thousands of years and now we need to change that trajectory, and it’s a tight turn.

I know that a big part of self-love is connecting to the body and the breath and just being inside of one’s own skin without trying to escape like an angry Xenomorph. When I talked to my Aunt in Ottawa she told me, “all I know how to do with what I’ve been through is to keep breathing.” Tomorrow I’m starting yoga again. I’ve been listening to Tibetan healing chants. I’m not into any kind of religious dogma, yet I find that there are morsels of beauty and brilliance in every spiritual and mystical thread.

I don’t know how to articulate what’s happening. It’s an action. It’s a force. It’s a warm solid thing slowly forming inside of me.

I know that I can make it through this. It’s time to be my own best friend.

☥Grief Round 2

Hours minutes and days are bleeding into each other. This is the most surrendered to grief I’ve ever been. I’m letting the waves of pain move through me and crash, move through me and crash.. This is also the most un-numbed I’ve ever been to how searingly painful loss is. I’m not even smoking cigarettes, just that half of one on that first night.

Given any other option, I would recoil from this. I’m facing the pain I keep running away from and I'm facing the pain that threads and spirals out of it, boring deep into my ancestral grief and the shared grief of humanity. I know I’m going to be in this for a while. I’m bracing myself for a spell of darkness and then trudging myself out the other side. I just have to accept that my life is what it is and stop resisting the desire to be somewhere else, be someone else, relive the past, or fantasize a future that will never materialize.

I’m not ready to fully accept that she's not here anymore. I’m hiding in the blankets in the basement. I cry and then come up for air, cry and then come up for air... I only half sleep in 15 minute intervals and then jolt awake again.

I don’t want to remember that I was upset forever about her dying so soon and wondering if it was my fault somehow. I want to remember that I spent over a year with the coolest cat ever. I’m going to lie here until find my inner Ezmeralda (minus the boneyard under the trailer, burying my turds in the garden and licking my feet): happy in my body, open to love, flowing with the river and not letting the abandonment's of the past fuck up the possibility of awesomeness in the future.

☥Round 3

I slept a little bit and dreamed about Ezzie. She was eating a pile of cold cuts and pretty excited about it. She was in a baby cradle and I went to cuddle her. We were in a cramped old room with antique furniture and a weathered, beveled mirror. The dream disintegrated and I woke up relieved to have had some real sleep.

I’m eating fruit and drinking water.

It’s so quiet now at 1:33 am.

I hope that I can sleep more. I know if I can eat a proper meal, I’ll sleep even better.

I’m being strong and I’m getting through this. I’m not thinking about how I’ll take my life anymore.

Another thing that the man at the restaurant said to me was that I have to “hide” my kindness and generosity somewhat or it will be exploited. And he was also right about that. Our interaction felt like a cliche scene from an 80’s movie where the wizened old black person tells the confused white person how to live their life..

Having to hide who I am because I’m too kind is hard to unravel, but it’s sound advice. I used to have street smarts and not take any shit. But then I was overly rigid. The pendulum has swung right and left, and I reckon now it will settle in the middle somewhere as I learn how to be strong again, and how to be more discriminate about how I expend my generosity.

I feel very lucky to have the support that I do right now and my mom is grieving for Ezzie as well, as she really loved her too. She understands how tragic this is for me. A friend talked to me for 2 hours on the phone last night and it felt really good. This seems like the best scenario: I’m here alone and figuring my shit out but have several people to reach out to. And I’m writing a lot. And there’s no internet to escape into. I’ve spent way too much time online in my life in general and I’m breaking free from that so I can focus on creativity and healing, and being aware of what’s going on around me.

I’m so glad that Ezzie didn’t suffer. The more I read about sudden cat death, the more I think that it was a heart failure of some kind. Maybe there were some subtle signs like the not eating as much and, like I said, a vet had previously said that she had heart murmurs. I knew it wasn’t good how fast she gained weight after I got her but it was hard to control that when there were 3 other cats around. I was looking forward to getting her onto a more regular feeding schedule. I was looking forward to hanging out with her this summer and taking her out on a leash to meet other people.

But also: she was a crutch and I was overly obsessed and attached to her. Similar to the lessons I learned with JC, I guess. He showed me what real love was, and I’d never felt that from anyone before: to be completely and utterly and unconditionally adored. But that kind of love is hard to maintain and painful to separate from. Though he set the bar and now I don’t settle for less. And now I understand how special of a bond I can have with an animal, and what healers they are. The kind of emotional support she gave me rescued me from the depths of the suicidal hell I was in. And she didn’t like it when I got angry; she always left the trailer. She was like hey just relax and be sad, don’t go off the deep end or I’m out of here.

Sorrow brings me deep into my own skin and I’m shedding a skin, and I hope I can sleep some more..

I’m so tired...

☥Round 4

I slept for a few more hours and woke up from a dream that quickly got washed away by fresh pangs of grief. As a creative and introverted person, Ezmeralda was such an integral part of my daily life. She became like a third limb. I wake up expecting a mound of warmth to be pressed up against my feet or curled into my backside. But she’s not here. There are empty nooks everywhere where she used to be and my heart is sick. I might shave off my eyebrows today. The Egyptians understood how sacred cats are.

I’ve always been a cat freak but my life has been too chaotic or I never lived anywhere where I could have a cat. She just appeared out of nowhere at my friends’ place in no man’s land. Maybe she was abandoned there or made her way from another one of the residences in the big sprawl of forest where the outsiders lived? One day I drove out to see my friend and there had been fresh snowfall. There were bear prints leading up to his place, and also Ezmeralda tracks. Somehow, despite being quite klutzy and seeming to be in a dream world most of the time, Ezzie survived out in bear and cougar country. The first night I crashed out there she did as she has done since: burrowed herself into the base of my feet, and then in the morning stomped up to my face with her giant paws and made a couple of small meowing sounds until I started petting her. Her love of food and cuddles was about equal, I’d say.

She was patient and kind and brought so much light into my life. I still can’t believe she’s not here. My best friend is gone. I though if I took good care of her I'd have her for some good long years. I thought that I was taking good care of her. She was so fucking happy and everything seemed great. I just don’t get it.

I’m a wreck.

I need to eat a proper meal today and leave the house and go to nature somewhere. I’m in the city now, and all of my secret places of solitude are far away from here. Everywhere I go, people will be around.

I keep thinking that she was extra cuddly that night because she knew that she was leaving me. She came for a short time to bring love and friendship and help me make my way through the dark.

Cat love is simple. Human love is difficult and complex. I find the toils of relationships exhausting. If we could approach our interactions with each other more like the ones we have with cats, life would be a lot better, I reckon. Like just hangout with each other and watch the sun come up and drink some tea. Stop racing around to nowhere and looking for the next best thing.

Who am I to talk? I’ve been running from my anxieties my whole life. But I don’t know, this trip wasn’t actually that hasty. It seemed like 2 weeks to get ready when I’m not working and going to a sublet for 3 months 3 hours away for people I know wasn’t too insane.

4 days.
4 days here and she’s dead. In Mandarin the pronunciation of the word death and the letter 4 are the same. The number 4 is not a lucky number.

I’m intellectualizing and letting my brain churn again to avoid my physical grief.

It’s light outside and the birds are chirping. If I shave off my eyebrows they'll take a long time to grow back. Do I want to do that to myself right now? It might conjure another layer of pain I’m not ready to uncoil right now – remembering those days as a teenager when I shaved off my eyebrows and started dressing in all black and disappearing into myself. There was something very comforting in that. I weaved a deathrock industrial mask to hide my deeper sensitivities - and no one could touch me there.

Leading up to those dark years, I felt very much how I feel now: alone and confused, not able to deal with social complexities, and overwhelmed by the world. But now I’m in my early 40’s and I’m going to finish the individuation I started. I’m not reacting as much to other's douchey behaviour and I'm taking this time to build up my inner strength - and the strength I’m building bores deep down into the earth and binds me to something ancient and hoary.

I’m meant to do this alone without my cat companion. I’m finding happiness within myself and I’m not caring about whether I have a partner, a child or tons of friends like I used to when I was a wastoid. I have a few real friends and that means more than a thousand friends on social media.

I feel so lucky to have real connections in times like this and I know I’m not completely alone, though I do have to navigate this mostly alone and go through this rite of passage. All trauma is a rite of passage I learned from a shaman I talked to when I first started having freaky encounters with animals in nature. I’ve been resisting it, yet I know that I often walk between the worlds, and that’s something I need to harness more. I don’t know how that will come together, but nothing can grow from within me when I want to die inside and can’t deal with basic day-to-day life. I can’t keep giving all of my good energy to others and leaving myself in the dark all of the time. Why can’t I love myself as much as I loved my cat?

I can. I’m going to do that.

☥ROUND 5 Reality

I'm not aware of what's going on around me a lot of the time and I often detach from my body and kind of hover my way through life. I have a hard time making decisions and get confused and overwhelmed and make tangles in my brain out of overthinking. I didn’t feel 100% good about coming here, but my anxiety told me to leave, my fear told me to leave. I don’t know how to let my heart lead and be kind and patient with myself. I’m paying a huge price now with the crippling of my spirit. I know I'll make it through this but the fires of Muspelheim are burning through my heart and soul right now. How can I not blame myself somewhat? I was responsible for her. I was her mom. I wasn’t being attentive enough to her needs. I was being selfish. I took for granted how sensitive she was.

I don’t want to be here without her. She was my wild eyed feline friend from the fae and I loved her so much. I’m a fucking wreck.

Self. Pity.
I’ve been through enough. I’m tired. I need a fucking respite. It’s not fair. Too much pain. Always so much pain. There aren't enough good things in my life to balance out all of the pain I've had to deal with. I used to be fun and free and know how to have a good time. I let that slowly get wiled away by the sands of time. But really, so many of those good times were an escape: drugs, alcohol, shitty casual sex, mania and delusions.

I knew I needed to let go of some emotional baggage, but I didn’t need Ezzie to die to open it all up. It would have come out on it’s own. Fuck.

Ezzie is gone.

☥Round 6 or 7

I made a shrine for her with food and a water bowl, my water mug she last took a drink from, her leash, a ball of tissue I tucked into my shoe at the vet after crying, flowers, and a tuft of fur. I’ll bury her ashes and fur in the pet cemetery on my parents property so she can be with the other departed pets. I filled her food bowl right up, as she liked to eat, that one. As one of the neighbours from across the street said when he saw her: “she looks like she never misses a meal”.

I’ve been nerding out on medical information again trying to figure out what might have happened. She died in her chill out position without any struggle or suffering. Cats often hide or bolt or stop eating or have major digestive issues when they move to a new place but she didn’t have any of that at all. I was just blown away by how quickly she adapted. And I’m still in shock over how she could have died so unexpectedly. She left my life as mysteriously as she came into my life. My sacred silver teddy bear, Ezmeralda.

I know I have to come out of my despair and be a part of the world again.

The basement is full of crannies and cobwebs and today I saw a very large spider crawl by just behind where my head was resting. That was the motivation I needed to move upstairs where there’s more light and no mildew.

Cats don't leave behind wills or lengthy requests as to how they'd like to be honoured, so the rituals following their passing are more for those who are still in the physical realm being able to heal and move forward.

What do I need for myself right now? What the fuck am I doing with my life? What are my core values? Who am I now that I’ve shed myself of my status in the film industry, my status in the dark metal and punk scenes, and most of my material possessions?

I was really looking forward to this time alone in Victoria but I thought I would have Ezzie with me. I told her every day all day “You’re a magical little munchkin”, “you’re the cutest little sweet face”, and “I just love you Ezzie Wezzie”. She would answer with her sweet little burbles. If I called “Ezmeralda!” she would run over from wherever she was, hop up onto my bed, stomp over to me and start giving me stinky kitty kisses. Sometimes she would sleep in the bed with me and sometimes she would sleep in a cupboard or on my jacket on the bench seat in the trailer we shared. For a time after I first took her home she would sleep on a folded up mattress outside of the trailer and I would look down at her in the morning from my window and call her in. I made her a special cat stairwell with a cat window that led into the trailer so she could come and go as she pleased, and she would run under the trailer over to the ramshackle stairwell and plunk herself through her little swinging cat door. She was big and stalky, and when she stretched out she was long and broad and covered in thick dense fuzz.  A couple of times people called her f*t and I became very defensive and let them know that Ezmeralda was not f*t, she was voluptuous.

If I get a cat again I would try and get a British Blue cause they're such a cool breed of cat - one of the first recorded breeds of cats, who were brought to Britain by the Romans to control pests.

I was quite shocked when she first started presenting me with the mangled remnants of rodents she had hunted. She was normally quite a slothful and clumsy creature, often falling off the bed, but when it came down to it, she was a decent hunter and liked a good mouse or snake to snack on. She also killed a lot of little birds, which was upsetting; and in those times I realized that she could be as ferocious as she could be cute – but never to her human servants.

When I was at a cafe today I searched Craigslist for British Blue cats to adopt, but there weren’t any on there. I searched the internet for photos of British Blues, but none of them looked at all like Ezzie to me or brought me any comfort. She was one of a kind and irreplaceable. Upon further reflection, I’m pretty sure that getting another cat would only heighten my sense of loss, even if they had the distinctive British Blue traits.

So maybe I didn’t kill her by bringing her here? Maybe she had a condition and was sick for a while and I just didn’t know it because cats hide their illnesses? Maybe the move just triggered a pre-existing issue and she wasn't going to live much longer as it was. Maybe she knew that if she died back at my folks place that I wouldn’t have left there, that I would have been too upset? So she waited and she had the happiest time with me until the time was right. 

It’s just too freaky. I only left her alone for a few hours. Maybe she took that opportunity to leave soundlessly and was like you’re all good, I gotta go now. I’ll be in your heart forever and visit you in your dreams.

Mourn but don’t suffer.

☥Round 7

I’m wearing the jacket I wore on that night and it smells like her death. I’m sitting on the couch near where I found her and breathing in a mix of her life and death smells.

We're more than physical bodies and electrical impulses. There’s a soul and an eternal essence in all living creatures and her spirit has been released from her mortal body. I hear her and I feel her presence and I know she's hanging around as I grieve.

Sometimes I feel JC’s presence reminding me that his love was true when I become angry about how everything ended.

Today I’m going to eat a good meal and I’m going to sleep more. I’m going to leave the house and go to a small beach not too far away. I’m going slow and taking it easy. It’s so hard to do, to just dial down and take it day by day.

I’ve become simultaneously extremely lucid and hypersensitive to scent, sound, touch and sight; and also extremely spaced out, exhausted and belaboured by the smallest of tasks. I’m eating more now and I’m getting things organized in this place and making a bed for myself upstairs.

This grief is peeling everything away and exposing me for what I am: a vulnerable kid inside that’s confused as fuck and doesn't know which way to turn. A kid without a cat. A kid that’s realizing that no one outside of myself is going to heal me or give me the love that will hold me together through this life. Not even the cutest cat in the whole world. She came to teach me how to love myself and get me to where I need to be right now, which is right here.

I didn’t realize how ridiculously attached I was to her until she disappeared. She was such a huge part of my life. When she showed up it felt like she had been here forever and would be here forever.

I’m glad I can be alone to process this, even though when the initial shock hit I really didn't want to be. I’m also glad that I opted to have no internet here or I know I’d be in some digital wormhole right now, either obsessing over medical potentialities, reading about other people grieving their pets or reading more about the Ukrainian genocide. Or doing online tarot card readings and asking if this is all my fault, and finding new ways to feel guilty and horrible about myself and overloaded with mental cyclones.

The laundry is hanging on the clothesline. I ate veggie pot stickers and vegan ice cream.

I’m grieving constantly but not letting myself get pulled down completely into the pits of despair. I’m finding ways of processing this all and realizing that it’s okay, and that death is a natural part of life.

She was the lump on my bed, the high wired empath who would come running in from outside every time I was sad and sprawl herself out next to my head, sitting there silent and stoic making sure I didn’t drown. She had the cutest run: a laboured little wiggle, with her tummy swaying underneath her. She liked to bask in front of my little trailer. She liked to bask everywhere. She would sprawl herself out in front of the fireplace in the living room at my folks place, stretching herself out into infinity and rolling around. She’d sprawl out on the dining room table, on the big dog cushions, on the couches, on the deck, on the grass, and on the kitchen counter.

I would forget that she was an older cat, as she still had so many kitten qualities to her.  Though when I’d play with her in the trailer it was hard to get her to even run from one end to the other. She preferred to just swat at the little stuffed mouse with her front paws and keep her backside planted where it was, pivoting around but not expending too much energy.

I had to leave her when I was dealing with my Aunt’s death in Vancouver and I was worried about whether she would get along okay. My mom sent me photos nearly every day of new perches she had found and it seemed that she was slowly taking over the whole house in her quiet yet stubborn manner.

I rarely saw her react to the provocations of other cats. She would just turn her back and hold her ground. She never acted out or became angry and when I would leave for extended periods of time, we’d just pick up right where we left off. She was a big dork yet also had grace and dignity and self-possession. Sometimes I’d run into her out in the yard somewhere and she’d look at me and run away like hey leave me alone, I’m doing cat things that are none of your business right now.

Like most cats she would clean herself fastidiously, yet she never licked her butt in my sight. She had so much class and sass and dash of grit. She loved to roll around in the dirt and would often come up onto my bed covered in fluff and fuzz and grime.

Anytime I was eating something she would laser beam over to me from wherever she was to inspect it and decide whether she wanted some. That was the one arena where she had no dignity: she would tear open the garbage, tear apart food packages and try a bite, and would jump up on any counter and eat whatever was there that she fancied. And she would spread herself out onto the food table that was shared with the other cats to claim it all for herself, or stake herself out under the food table. The only time I ever saw her be the slightest bit aggressive was when she swatted one of the other cats who tried to share a food bowl with her. She had a sharp set of powerful teeth and giant paws with savagely long nails, yet she never scrapped with anyone. She would often whimper, and then turn around and run away, even to the emaciated elderly cat who had no teeth.

Angel was extremely jealous of Ezmeralda when she first arrived on the property. He had been coming into my trailer a lot beforehand and was starting to think that it might be his new hangout and respite from the other 4 animals. But when Ezzie showed up, that all ended. I would have started slowly letting him inside again but he started spraying every time he came in, and going for Ezzie’s food. I barred him and he didn’t take it very well, and he bullied her mercilessly in retribution.  He would follow her around the yard and yowl at her in a low simmer. He would stomp up onto the roof of the trailer and pace around, and he would prowl up to Ezzie’s cat window and peer in with his black and white face pressed up to the plexiglass like a crazed killer. He couldn’t figure out how to open it though haha.

So much loss in such a short period of time. I feel for so many of the people in Ukraine who had to leave their pets behind and I know that so many pets have died and suffered. I read a really disturbing account of some animal keepers in a place near Kyiv being murdered. I have to remind myself every day of how lucky I am to live on these lands that I live on and that I’m safe and secure and have so many freedoms and comforts. There are wars and genocides going on all over the world. And there is no true equality or freedom in so-called Canada.

I can be aware of the sufferings that are happening in my midst and around the globe and still live a good life without feeling guilty all of the time: be accountable and work for the betterment of humanity yet not put so much pressure on myself to take everything on.

Spiraling out of the void and into the fractal of life.

I was dreaming about teaching a big group of young adult students and I was trying to get all of their attention so I could bring them over to a different area near a coffee shop and talk to them about the history of black metal. I had Ezmeralda with me in a little cat backpack and when I got to the coffee shop I took off the backpack and she was hiding her head inside of a little pouch. I picked her up and cradled her and her eyes were weeping gelatinous ooze. She was still half alive and with what faint energy she still had she was cuddling into my hand. She was so frail and emaciated and I held her until she died, with a puddle of goo forming in my palms. 

A part of me is flush with the knowledge of spirit and nature and cycles, and another part of me is dumbfounded and crushed into a million pieces.

I cried nearly constantly for 48 hours and hardly slept or ate and finally last night I was able to sleep. I woke up sad again and missing my friend Ezmeralda. The birds were starting to chirp, the sky was indigo and I’m out of the spider lair and in a cozy bed upstairs with freshly cleaned bedding that was sun and wind dried. I have a habit of blowing my nose into my bed sheets when I’m crying cause it saves trees and it feels comforting somehow and I know it’s kind of gross but I don’t care. That’s why I brought my own bedding here. I decided yesterday to clean everything.

I need to eat a lot this morning and drink a lot of water as I’m going to do a yoga class this afternoon. I know it'll bring up a lot of emotional stuff but will also feel good in my body.

Holy fuck, I sure loved that cat. This is going to be really hard.

Finding the centre of the sun inside inside my heart. Holding myself together so I don’t fall apart.

Self-partnering.
Thus far I’ve often been perceiving my aloneness and lack of ability fit in socially or put down roots or “find” a partner as an indication that I’m deeply flawed in some way and have allowed my self-worth to be sanded down to almost nothing; particularly as I got deeper into my 30’s. And then after I turned 40 I pretty much gave up on myself. I was just floating through life not really caring about whether I lived or died and I figured that I might as well make the most out of as much time as I could stand being on this planet by devoting myself to greater worldly issues – mostly land protection.

After the last toxic relationship I had, I began rejecting romantic advances and buried myself in books and records, and spent huge amounts of my time alone in nature. I was fighting hard to stay alive because I didn’t want to hurt those close to me and I knew that if I were to take my life, it would devastate them.

Living for others is no way to live and being in unbearable amounts of emotional pain and unable to cope with my deeper sensitivities was wearing me down. I would sometimes come out of my solitude and attempt to connect with others – and more often than not I'd end up being taken advantage of, taken for granted, emotionally abused, and used. Substance abuse and mental breakdowns unsheathed me into a featherless chicken.

I also felt like I should be happy because I’m a White girl in a country without war and I’ve never been violently raped or prevented from travelling or going to school and getting a job.

I don’t deserve to feel shitty. I should be happy.

I remember going to Mexico one time and I was hanging out in the outskirts of Puerto Vallarta in a residential area where there were dirt poor families living in shanties on the beach front. My friend and I went to a little restaurant nearby and we hung out for quite a while and he was really friendly with the locals and spoke some Spanish. I was really struck by how happy and full of life everyone was. And I was coming from Canada where so many people desire to emigrate to, yet I was horribly depressed and suicidal and fucked up on hard drugs. It’s like all of these things that we think will make up happy don’t actually make us happy at all: material success, social status, cool clothes, cul-de-sacs and a nice vehicle to drive. So many of the social groups we form here are superficial and we don’t know how to cope with trauma and the challenges of life because we think that everything should be perfect all of the time because we’ve been sold a fantasy of what life should be through various TV shows, films and advertisements. We’ve invested our entire lives into living lies and seeking things that are are unrealistic and illusory. And then the 10 year old boy I saw in Mexico playing outside of his seaside shack running in and out of the ocean seemed completely content with life.

Not that we never experience any happiness here and it’s all utter misery.  It just seems like there’s a lot of alienation and disconnect from each other and like we should be a lot more content based on all of the material comforts that we have. But we’re not. And we take a lot for granted.

Industrialization and the corporatization of spirituality has robbed of us essential rites of passage to become whole and weather the storms of life. Mental illness, substance abuse, the divide between the rich and the poor and the raping of the land's resources is keeping up all enslaved. We need to change or we’re not going to have a habitable planet. The earth will survive just fine, but we’re fucking up ourselves and the future generations with our fucked up and destructive behaviours.

We’re so engineered to seek approval, love and security from outside of ourselves; yet most of us come from family systems where our basic emotional needs weren't met. Probably because our parents weren't able to take care of their own emotional needs, because their parents weren't able to give them the support and love that they needed. Nearly all of us are dealing with some kind of inter-generational trauma.

I’m not alone because I’m a terrible person or no-one loves me. I’m alone because I need to take the helm and do deep healing around the family traumas that I’ve inherited and light fires in the dark caverns of my mind and heart. I can’t buy into the illusion of external love as a panacea for all of my troubles. I have to have internal love first.

Letting go of expectations.

Every time I move to a new place I create a whole bunch of fantasies in my mind about how things are going to go and make all kinds of plans and projections. And it never ends up working out how I imagine. I didn’t do that when I came here.

I was just listening to an old Talk Talk cassette tape of my mom’s from the 80’s and I’m getting really into it. Their hit songs are more on the pop side of things, yet the album in it’s entirety has some great dark wave elements to it. They’re an awesome band - great lyrics, good beats and synth riffs and the singer’s vocals are soft, swooning and soulful. When I hear the lyrics: “All you do is talk talk, talk talk talk talk”, I think about all of the wounded, shit-talking politicians who spew all kinds of bullshit yet never take real action to make humanity better and address the real issues that we’re facing.

I got a really cool package in the mail from a friend of my Auntie’s. She knew my Aunt forever and I’ve heard about her over the years and about all of the radical activism she’s involved in in New York where she’s lived for most of her life. I guess my Aunt must have told her about all the land defending I’ve been doing and so she sent me a booklet called Hoodwinked in the Hothouse. She also included a lovely note and gave me her phone number. I’ll definitely give her a call one day.

Cats are the most amazing creatures. Life on earth without cats would not be worth living.

I looked out the window this morning and the sun was reflecting off of a streak of clouds and made a band of bright white light that was glowing in subtle rainbow hues. I knew that Ezzie’s spirit was moving on and it feels so soon. I remembered about the rainbow bridge later on and realized that what I saw in the sky looked exactly like a rainbow leading up to a puffy white cloud and I started crying my eyes out again.

I’m not meant to shave my eyebrows and mourn for 3-4 months. I have this time to work through a lot of feelings in a short period of time so I can move on quickly.

After yoga I walked down to Chinatown and got 2 slices of greasy pizza and then got some soft serve vegan ice cream with chocolate sauce and pecans at the end of Fan Tan alley. It was so good. I’m channeling my inner Ezmeralda and not missing a meal. Usually when I get depressed I’m too nauseous to eat and I start losing weight and my sleep gets all fucked up. This time I'm choking down food even if I feel like I might vomit.

I wake up with anxiety. I went to sleep with anxiety. I’m back to thinking that I killed my cat somehow and being really angry at myself.

My friend who I was dating who’s place Ezzie came to mysteriously – I think about him a lot. We didn’t end things on the best of terms. He became abusive and had a lot of mental health and substance abuse issues – yet we also had a very strong connection with each other. I miss him and I still love him and I felt like the cat kept us connected connected still. I wish that he would make contact with me just so I know that he’s okay.

I don't want to be here alone. I want my furry friend with me. I’m so sad.

I thought I had a natural inclination to nurture, but right now I feel like a failure and like I couldn’t protect my cat-child. 

I'm always so hard on myself about everything and I blame myself for so many things and I try so hard to be perfect but I can’t ever be perfect and don’t need to be.

Back to the cosmic wisdom and the bigger picture: I was using her to avoid dealing with other humans and forming close bonds with other humans. It’s a common thing with pets and it’s not entirely healthy. At the same time, I always imagined that once humans came into my life again that I'd get another cat for Ezzie to hang out with.

I’m haunted by the image of her lifeless body.

I want someone to hug me and hold me. JC was the only person who ever did that.

I’m hugging myself and I'm holding myself tight. I'm finding my inner Ezmeralda who could sit quietly in the same spot all day long. She seemed so calm all of the time. And the way she inhabited her body was a revolution.

I’m a loner. I’ve been a loner my whole life. I do most of the giving and most of the compromising in my relationships. I’ve been a dish rag.

I've been running away from myself and moving around for so many years and when I got here I felt completely fucked up. But I was stuck in a hardcore rut where I was – I was too isolated and I was becoming deeply deeply deeply depressed. I don't usually quote celebrities or look to them for wisdom, especially one as hostile to makeup fx artists as Jim Carey is, but he did have something to say about depression that stuck with me. I think he was paraphrasing it from someone else but it's about how being depressed is a call for "deep rest". Right now I'm heeding that call.

I know I'll make it through this but I'm not okay right now and that's okay.

Chia pudding with fresh made hazelnut milk, pumpkin spice, maple syrup and raspberries. The mason jar I made it in was used for bath salts and so the pudding tastes like rose, lavender and epsom - a bit strange, but it’s okay..

It's time to step out of my childish ways of being in the world and reacting to the world.

I have faith in humanity and really positive and powerful shifts are starting to happen. As the boomer generation moves out of power, huge changes will happen globally. It sucks because that means that many of my elders will be gone, and I have so many older friends in my life who are really important to me. But in the coming years I have to ready myself for some big losses and stepping into greater maturity within myself. I've been living like a teenager and avoiding responsibilities and not wanting to participate in life or society because there’s so much that I hate about it.

I can't do anything until I have a solid nucleus within myself. It doesn’t have to take forever to come together.

☥Day 4 of Grieving

I don’t want to lose track of time completely and disappear into myself.

I’m still quite vulnerable and broken. I don’t want to be, and then I try to act like I have it all together, but I totally don’t.

I believe that there are higher forces at work in the world because too much freaky stuff happens in my life. There’s more going on than just willpower and circumstance. I'm being drawn hither and tither for specific reasons. Like if my van had made it out of the blockade in one piece, I think I would have taken my own life in it. I had some pretty extensive plans brewing. Having all of that fucked up shit happen forced me to stay at my folks place and then be there for my mom when my Aunt passed on. It brought us closer together, and strangely, Bill (the angry logger who mowed my van down) Robertson's attempt to crush my spirit had the opposite effect in helping me heal and become ready for more activism.

There was nothing I could do to control Ezzie’s eating, she was a monster for the food. She would have found some way to get her grub, no matter what. She was happy, and living her life on her own terms. Just like my Aunty did.

I'm going to be fucked up for a while. There’s a huge hole in my heart.

He gave her her name.

I don’t know how to let relationships flow. But actually, it was him pushing for us to get closer in the beginning. It seems like most of the men I date really want to get close quickly and then after we become intimate, they become cold, secretive and distant. When they pull away, I get deeply upset, and then the connection gets frazzled. Then they come on strong again. Repeat. Ad naseum. Apparently these are hallmarks of narcissistic, emotionally unavailable men. It’s fucking hell. I've really had enough of it all. I think it’s all about power and control. They just want to possess me, and once I open up my heart, the conquest is over. Then they can just sit back and let me do all of the emotional work, like their broken mothers did. And once I'm in love with a person, it’s really difficult to detach from them. It takes time. And it’s a lot harder to detach when the person is keeping me on a string and manipulating me (I'm going to take my life and you'll be the catalyst). It’s fucking hard to break inter-generational patterns of abuse and co-dependency. I’ve healed my own substance abuse issues, taken Vipassanas, read self-help books, gone to counselors and scream cried into the void - yet I still slip into the same worn out dramas over and over.

I don’t want to be here right now. I want to be a ghost.

Laguz. The water rune.  Going with the flow.  The flow doesn’t necessarily mean gentleness and a quaint canoe ride on a calm lake in the stillness of summer - water rages and tumbles and crashes down onto rock and sand - it splashes and sploshes and pools - and presses up into the river banks.

I think this rune is about staying on the ride of life, and learning how to move within the chaos of external circumstances, and to keep moving even as the landscape morphs and becomes more treacherous.  Water can transmute and move through anything.

Do I want to be 70 and still angry over these old lovers? No. I want to move on now. I want self-possession and self-respect now. I also know that many of the men I dated had sincere feelings for me and they were tormented by their inability to be vulnerable and give emotionally, and then they sought refuge in drugs and alcohol. It's pure pain all around and I don't know how I could have dealt with it differently, but I know that they're also suffering.

To say that I wish them well would be a lie. If I were to hear about them being completely happy in their lives I would feel upset because they've done nothing to make amends for their cruelty. Yet I would be horrified if any of them were to end their lives.  Heal and be accountable. 

Now the grieving comes in rasps, deep and guttural, and dredges up the slime from the depths of my soul.

I felt like harming myself earlier, something I started doing again when I was coming out of the last relationship I was in. I watched a video about self harm on the Good Samaritans site a few months ago, and I heard a person who had also struggled with self harm suggest that in those darkest of dark moments, tell yourself WAIT. WAIT a few hours. WAIT until the next day. Just WAIT.

I know that if I mar myself then I’ll be too ashamed to go to yoga and will only become more isolated. Rather than listen to dark music and cut myself, I decided to WAIT.

If this was happening to somebody else would I be screaming at them and punching them and telling them it’s all their fault? No. – so why am I doing that to myself?

It’s almost noon and all I've eaten is a little bit of chia pudding. I'm making myself another egg sandwich and then I'm going to get ready and go a cafe and check my emails. Then I'm going to get myself together and go to an event tonight where I might see some acquaintances.

I went to an Adaitsx Fairy Creek event and it was great to see some people I knew there and see some great performances. And... there was a bunch of fucking drama.  Mainly over an obnoxious and entitled White woman, and I felt her suffocating presence immediately upon entering the room. She was asked to leave several times but refused. It's really embarrassing to witness this kind of thing and I've seen it all too often in spaces where Indigenous people and others are trying to have a voice and heal, and then some White person is all like but what about meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Hot yoga. Infrared heat. Sweat, stretching and breathing deep. I always leave feeling refreshed and energized, and in the following 24 hours have a big breakdown. I was listening to Nina Simone on the way home “break down, let it all out!”. Hearing her lyrics and feeling her voice, my problems seem so small. But then lying here today shedding so many tears and feeling so raw I know that I should still be sensitive to my own suffering. Just because others have suffered far greater traumas and continue to suffer globally doesn’t mean I shouldn't go through all of the things I need to go through. When I'm sensitive to my own ails I can be more empathic and better able to relate to others. The first layer of tears is for me and my private miseries and then I go to a deeper place and I grieve for humanity as a whole.

I have to face these dark feelings within myself – my self hatred and the desire to die and escape this life.

I’m eating a cheese, egg and tomato sandwich again with sourdough and olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt. It’s really good.

Actually writing all this out does super fucking help me out.

Okay, lets turn this around on it’s head. What if Ezzie had died at my mom and step dad’s house and I hadn’t come here? Would I have then tormented myself for not bringing her here because then I could have controlled her diet more? And have been mad at myself because I was still stuck out there and depressed as fuck and could have been in the city with more going on around me and new opportunities? How about that for something to think about?

I was thinking to reach out to the vet, but in the end I might not, because she was so kind and thorough and I don’t want her to feel guilty. I think she did a really god job with Ezzie and seemed to really care, and wasn't rushed at all. It’s not her fault. No one saw this coming. It was freakish.

I made it through another grieving session without cutting myself.

I guess what I have is manic depression, ptsd, anxiety, depression, childhood trauma, probably autistic, hypersensitive, HSP and I guess I'm an empath.

Yesterday I was like wooo hoo hoo, I should go to New York! Today I'm like no I'm going to kill myself instead.

I get a bit defensive about the whole bipolar thing because I think that extremes of emotions are a natural part of life, and pretty understandable given the state of human society and they way that it functions (or doesn't function). I don’t want to be a pilled out zombie.

I think there's a balance that can be found where the highs and lows aren’t totally unhinged like they get for me sometimes. I walk a fine line, but I keep myself together enough not to go completely off the deep end. I’m so fortunate in so many ways. I feel for so many people globally who are struggling and don’t have the space to heal. Or who are living in extreme poverty, environmental catastrophe and war.

My friend who I've known for a long time reminded me that I have a history of bolting, and asked me to try and stick it out here for a while so her and I can have some quality time together hanging out, which rarely happens. I'm going to try.

One of the biggest banes of my life is that I've never felt like I belong anywhere. I feel uncomfortable in my human skin and am constantly trying to escape everything. Ezmeralda didn’t have that problem. Even though all of the other cats were pissed off when she showed up, she didn’t care. She stood her ground and took up space wherever she wanted. I had to be careful where I walked as she would sneak up on me and sprawl herself along the narrow passageway in the trailer we shared. I stepped on her a few times and she would squeal like she was horribly offended that I didn’t see she that was there, all like excuse me I’m the cutest thing ever right in front of you here, how could you not notice me?

She had a bent tail and that wasn’t too much of a surprise as she was slow and bumbly and when I'd let her out of the trailer door she’d linger for a while with her tail wavering in between the door and the frame.  Then she’d slowly make her way to the front area, usually stopping to scratch a chunk of wood or roll around in some dirt. She’d lounge in front of the trailer by the flower pots, sometimes for hours.

She never stopped looking out for wildlife and didn’t fully trust the trip from the trailer to the main house. She would stop intermittently and look around or hide in a bush and then finally she’d go running up to the stairwell with a frantic warble to her gait.

I spend a lot of time lying in bed crying and she would just stomp right on top of my body as I was hidden under the covers and then hover over me with her laser eyes.

Ezmeralda didn’t get depressed. She sometimes took long breaks from the toils of life and sprawled out upon one of the large cushions in the trailer, and if I'd say her name or pet her she’d stretch out her tummy and roll about happily.

I've been so stuck in the past, unable to move on from the 80’s, the 90’s, the 2000’s - the everything’s. All of the things that happen in my life are stuck to me like bog mud and I've been keeping myself in a cloud of delusions. I don’t need to get rid of my cool records or anything, but just wash away some of the density of my life experiences and step into the reality of right now.

She came in a flash and then she left in a flash. A small streak of white cloud illuminated by the morning light. A small band of rainbow colours shined down for a short time. A bright rainbow bridge.

When I used to imagine Ezmeralda in my mind's eye I'd see her in a field of buttercups chasing after a bee. I bet she was the cutest fucking kitten ever. o.m.g.

Holy fuck is there ever a hole inside of me right now. This fucking sucks.

Is seeing a rainbow bridge something I manifested to make myself feel better or a real place in the spirit world that exists now because enough humans believed in it to make it real?

Was me hearing and feeling Ezmeralda in the days following her passing hallucinations, or real messages from the spirit world?

Today the grief came at me like a bulldozer with broken breaks - snot and spit spilling out onto the floor. I looked down at where she last was, lying so peacefully. I cursed the heavens and howled in pain.

Reality bites. Life is tough. Death happens. Choices are made and we can never know if the other road would have been better. I didn’t kill my cat.

We had a pure kind of love that is rare and precious and I can remember that when I’m brutally upset that she’s gone.

I need to just calm the fuck down.

I haven’t accepted this yet. I still feel so nauseous and it’s hard to keep food down. I might get some hearty Indian food to-go today and let someone else cook for me.

What’s the ideal mental, emotional and spiritual outcome of the death of a loved one? I guess it’s different for everybody, and different for every death.

I need to give myself lots of time and space to grieve all of the layers being flaked away.

I feel like such a cornball to be so attached to this little munchkin. I remember when I first took her in, I was all like I'm not going to get too attached. And then I was like oh shit, she’ll die before me and i'll be really sad.

I was being really nice to myself this morning. At times in the past when a tragedy has happened, I wasn’t able to cope at all. I think I'll go to another yoga class tomorrow.

To get so attached to another when I'm so detached from myself isn’t good. Yoga brings me into my body. The woman who taught the class I did the other day was deeply compassionate, vulnerable, and very strong – we were all very focused on our inner worlds, with our vanities and insecurities melting away.

Thank you healthy food. Thank you clean wind and water. Thank you family and soul friends, reminding me who I am when I get lost.

Thank you mind. Thank you organs. Thank you safe home. Thank you birds and insects and cafes with free internet.

To have such a precious and joyful piece of my life ripped away is soul shattering. And to lose that connection between myself and the person I was dating is very painful as well.

I don’t know how to deal with the wounded men that come into my life. Emotional abuse is fucking hell. This is the root of why I can’t stand being here on this planet: the horrible cruelty of others, starting in my infancy. So many people are poisoning themselves and everyone around them with their abusive behaviour and they refuse to heal. So many of the people who have power, money and influence in the world are acting from a similar wounded place.

But I can’t give up completely on those who are broken.

I can go to the darkside or I can see the beauty in this - her gift of love and her leaving painlessly.

Everything that isn’t grieving is a distraction because all I want to do is cry cry cry, all day and all night.

I considered going to a comedy night tonight and then got home and had a big breakdown again. Probably not a good idea. It’s okay to just chill. And cry my guts out some more.

Yes, I've been fucking up my life and running around in circles but I'm not giving up on myself.

I’m going to spend a while being really fucked up and I'll be slowly healing myself out of this.

Fuck.

I think it’s getting near the full moon. I can feel the intensity building.

I can’t really think about functionality right now. I have so much to do all around me and I can’t touch any of it. I just need to let these dark feelings move through me, and focus on eating and sleeping and journalling this out.

My body is precious. It isn’t something to be used up and spit out.

Lessons learned from my last relationship:
- each person is responsible for themselves, yet accountable to each other
- don’t rush into sex
- give lots of space and slowly let a relationship grow
- don’t overwhelm a person emotionally even if they’re overwhelming you emotionally
- find a balance between acceptance and boundaries
- if it’s not healthy, loving and committed ~then walk away

As for the messed up dudes who have come into my life and caused so much harm - I know the lesson there is that I’m not loving and respecting myself enough. Their selfish motivations, their immaturity, and their lack of sensitivity isn’t my problem anymore. I'm breaking the withered bonds. I used to have this strength when I was younger and I'm finding it again. I remember being pushed into a corner then, only that time it was mainly from the abusiveness of wounded women.

Nivek the cat died on my 18th birthday and I was devastated. He was the fucking cutest. When I first rescued him I would take him out with me in the pocket of my hand painted Alien Sex Fiend jacket. He would come to Bon’s with me or to the TNT supermarket on Renfrew. The 90’s. Freedom.

The 90's. When I first started to struggle with my mental health and was watching my idols die: Kurt Cobain, Dwayne Goettel and Rozz Williams. Dwayne Goettel spent some of his last days before going to his parents in Edmonton to try and clean up (and then OD'ing on some H that a friend sent him in the mail) in a flat in the Downtown Eastside. A guy I knew from the Graceland nightclub was friends with him and moved into his place after he died; and he ended up giving me a bunch of memorabilia that was left in the apartment: a Last Rights tour shirt, hand cuffs, a Gieger print and more. I was excited to have these precious relics, yet also felt the weight of their inheritance, and eventually passed them on.

I had a really rough evening and night last night, crying a lot, and I couldn’t get it together to eat enough. I tried to compensate by drinking juice and a really high calorie dandelion drink with lots of oat cream and honey, but it wasn’t enough. I'm weak this morning and trapped in heavy feelings.

It’s okay to be totally fucked up. It’s okay to be a disaster inside.

I won’t harm myself. If I feel very strong feelings of self hatred I’ll wait before acting on them. Wait. Wait one hour. Wait the night. Wait until the morning. Eat enough food and call a friend or a family member when needed. Take all of the time that I need. No rush to do anything. Just relax.

This isn’t meant to be easy or over quickly. My connection to animals is such that I see them as just as sentient and precious as a human. So this is no different than losing a human. I will grieve her always to some degree because she was very very special to me. I’m accepting the gravity of the loss and that I won’t ever “get over” it. It will just soften and become part of the fabric of my life experiences.

The rawness of this will scab over and I'll be able to function more as time goes on. If I spend my whole 3 months here grieving and healing, that’s okay.

Her spirit left so quickly. She didn’t linger very long, she was like you need to get a life, you’ve been hiding under the covers for too long.

Tall glass of organic apple cider. Another cheese, egg and tomato fried sandwich with sea salt and lots of olive oil. Dandelion drink.

I was feeling so nauseous that I thought I might puke but I'm getting this sandwich down slowly. I don’t like the aftertaste of animal, in the egg or in the cheese. I can’t think about it. I just keep choking it down. My body needs this right now. My spirit wants veganism but right now I need strength and instant protein. Have to take out some of the egg. Won’t be able to get it all down. Don’t push it or I’ll blow chunks.

Going to do yoga tonight. That’s my anchor today. Going to check my email and maybe get out into some nature. I'll slowly get used to having people around again.

Grounded. Pain holds me down and forces me to open my eyes wide and see the world as it is and see my life as it is, and how I pretend that things aren’t as bad as they are to avoid pain - how I distract myself and keep myself insulated.

If I keep living in a world of delusions I can’t make the changes that need to be made within myself and out in the world.

Ezmeralda didn’t give shit about what anyone thought about her. She sat where she wanted and she got her snacks no matter what.

Oh man I miss her so bad. I’m like a seven year old child losing her pet. This grief is inconsolable.

She was just there all of the time. She was so tightly woven into the fabric of my day and now it’s all a frayed mess. If she were here right now she would have smelled this sandwich and come running from wherever she was perched and demanded some for herself. She would be eating the chunk of egg I can’t get down and then giving me face cuddles and streaking her slobbery cat mouth along the side of my computer and on my hands. She liked being pet a lot but not handled in any way or forced to move from where she wanted to be. She would pick her spot and roost and that was where she would stay. She would cry out at any attempt to move her or shift her aside if she was in the way.

I knew I would go through a sad spell when I got here, but I thought I'd have her here with me. The hairy mound beside me. The meows in the morning to get my ass out of bed.

Now there’s just silence and empty holes everywhere where a ball of fur should be.

I was listening to Faith No More's The Real Thing album this morning; it’s a cassette that I had when I was in my early teens. They were hugely popular at the time, and their video for the song Epic where a fish out of water flops around helplessly on the ground played prolifically on Much Music.

I was too young at the time to grasp the depth of the lyrics on this album, and in hearing it again I’ve been reading the insert and listening intently to each song. I think one thing about Generation X is that we weren’t afraid to express raw feelings and raw realities about the world. There was definitely a lack of softness within myself and my peers. I rarely remember crying in front of any of them - only once when I was about 13 and my mom had gone through something traumatic and I was supporting her through it and was really overwhelmed. The girl I opened up to was older than me and very popular and I was surprised when she wanted to be my friend. We had a lot of fun times together and I did acid for the first time with her. She was from England and had an accent and when she would go home to visit her dad there, she would send me postcards. She saw the band EMF play one time and wrote me about it. That was so cool.

Anyway, this Faith No More album is really fucking good. They do a cover of War Pigs by Black Sabbath, and the lyrics of their original songs go deep into the themes of true deep love with another human and the pain and torment that comes with it. Zombie Eaters is a perfect exploration of the wounded narcissistic man.

In 2013 I ended up at a music festival in Melbourne and I happened upon Mr. Bungle playing. I was flabbergasted. I looked them up in the festival guide and realized that it was Mike Patton of Faith No More. It was one of the strangest, most insane and energetic performances I’ve ever seen.

Perhaps this is where my soul has been drawing me all along - into a mature version of my true introverted neurodivergent self that’s in touch with the darkside and can slough off the users and abusers of the past. I can’t be open to everyone anymore, it’s too taxing. It’s destroying me. There are too many Zombie Eaters out in the world.

There’s been somebody here for me throughout my whole life and that’s my self. No one else is going to heal and protect me the way that I can. The next time love and friendship comes into my life it will be very different. I've been hiding the badass and hyper-intelligent parts of myself because they’re intense and freak people out and create tension and “awkwardness”. Well, fuck it. I don’t care anymore. I shouldn’t be forced to become a parody of a human just to get along. Humanity as a whole needs to grow up and go deeper into themselves. People should be growing wiser, not doing everything they can to stay young and ignorant, as seems to be the fashion these days.

Ezmeralda, the miraculous mystical munchkin from another dimension. She came with the love and the cuddles and the wisdom and left behind a trail of rainbows and care bear stares.

How to live in the world as an especially sensitive and vulnerable person:
- never miss a meal
- trust that good things will happen to you
- be still and sit still
- don’t let the heartbreaks of the past fuck up the present and the future possibilities
- enjoy the good things that are right in front of you
- don’t let people bully you but don’t become a bully
- be strong and hold your ground and don't react to the shitty behaviour of others
- take your time and don’t follow others, go at your own pace
- open yourself up to love and trust that good things will come your way if you stay true to yourself
- keep giving unconditional love to those around you, even the most wounded of souls, but keep your own force field in tact
- be discerning, know who your people are and when you find them latch onto them and hang out with them as much as you can and appreciate them completely because they might disappear in a flash

There’s a full moon eclipse in Scorpio coming up so I'm preparing myself for another layer of soul crust being scraped away. I definitely need to get to a body of water soon and throw myself right the fuck into it. Still a bit too vulnerable for that right now, but soon.

I bought a zine today about appropriation of sacred Indigenous herbal medicines. It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while, and I recently stopped using sage, paolo santo or sweetgrass. I’m going to use this full moon eclipse as an opportunity to gather what items I have and bury them.

I received a call today from the vet to let me know that Ezmeralda's paw impression is ready to pick up. I'm not ready to go do that yet.

This separation is like having my soul ripped apart, which makes sense because myself and this creature bound ourselves together for a time and were so deeply connected that the separation can’t be anything other than being torn asunder. But I now know in my heart that I didn’t kill my cat with bad vibes and I'm not some selfish monster. I might get depressed at times but I also have a lot of fun sometimes as well; and Ezmeralda went from being shy, broken and starving for love to staking her ground, having a full belly and getting more love than she could ask for from everyone at the house.

I wouldn't have felt good about prolonging her life with medications and radical diet changes. She wanted to eat and gain weight and chill for the last of her days. And that she did. And she died in the most peaceful and beautiful way possible. She didn’t suffer at all. The vets were great. It couldn’t have been more kind or more smooth for anyone. She was an old cat and had health issues and died naturally. I can accept that now.

I'm quite tired at the moment and think I'll sleep deeeply tonight. I ate a good amount of food today and was able to keep it down without major nausea.

Ezzie’s in the eternally blooming fields of buttercups now chasing bumble bees and stretching out her broad long body and cute pink paws into infinity. She was my cat soul-mate and a magical fairy sprite and we’ll meet again.

I washed the dishes for myself last night and it was nice to wake up to clean counters. I also bought myself some expensive locally made oat cream. I usually make my own nut milk and reuse the pulp in cookies, but it’s laborious and I keep forgetting to soak the nuts. So for now I'm treating myself to a carton of deliciousness that I don’t need to toil over. I also got some tortillas made in California so I can make some quesadillas. There’s some really good old cheddar cheese made in Nanaimo that I started buying last year and I'm eating local eggs, BC Hot House tomatoes and locally made bread. I’m trying to buy as much local as I can. I’m wearing slippers and sweaters a lot and only turned the heat on a couple of times in the bedroom I've been hanging out in. I’ve barely used the truck I borrowed and have been riding the bike I was lent and walking around a lot. The one thing I've been doing a lot of is having baths but I'll taper down on that as I heal from the shock of Ezzie being gone. And even so, I don’t fill the water as high as I used to. I'm really thinking every day about how I live and how I can reduce my impact on the world around me.

I was dreaming about doing special fx makeup again with a group of people and we were making two clay sculptures of a man’s face with two different exaggerated expressions. We were working on doing some detail work with pore texture. I woke up feeling overwhelmed and was like holy shit these projects take so much work. I'm tired just thinking about making an fx prop.

We built glass houses on rivers of blood.

The world looks very different through the eyes of an Indigenous person. China seems like a country that shouldn’t be supported due to human rights abuses and genocide. I try to support Taiwan. But does China look any better than Canada to an Indigenous person whose rights have been persistently and systematically destroyed since the beginning of European colonization? The freedoms that myself and even many refugees here experience don’t apply to Indigenous people as a whole. The oppression of Indigenous people is the foundation of all the freedoms and comforts that we enjoy.

Sitting on that and rotating for a while..

Can I be in support of Indigenous sovereignty and actively try and dismantle the power systems of my own oppressive government, yet also support the sovereignty of Taiwan, Tibet, Ukraine and Palestine? Or do I focus on healing the wounds of these lands?

☥Day 7

It’s been just over a week now. I’ve grieved hard for Ezzie. I cried more last night and am settling into the fact that she’s gone and much is gone with her. It was time for a move, time to let go of my last relationship and it was time to become independent again.

This has been the push I've been feeling for a long time yet avoiding and then trying to distract myself away from through new lovers, new friends, new jobs etc. Now it’s just me and the rent is paid and I have nothing else to do but moult and grow strong again.

Going to watch Finding Nemo.

☥Day 8

Did another yoga class yesterday and spent a decent amount of time out. Found some checkered Vans for $6 at a thrift store.

I’m still having little breakdowns throughout the day. The full moon is here and much is being shorn and sacrificed to the light of spring.

I found an old cassette tape that I must have picked up at punk show in Van. The band is called Balance. The first song is about a deeply bonding yet ultimately fraught relationship, and I felt like I could have been the girlfriend he was talking about, and have been at times to various men. The lyricist also talked about his life as an Indigenous person - losing his brother at a really young age, his mom going through the residential school system and himself running away to Vancouver.

I shouldn’t ever get too arrogant about my efforts to participate in Indigenous land defense or my time volunteering in the Downtown Eastside. Sometimes I can be a good support person and sometimes I’m too wrapped up in my own bullshit to be of any use to anyone, or need time to work through new layers of my own ignorance that rise up to the surface..

Listening to this band I'm reminded of the reality of what was done to the people of these lands and what continues to be done - and that to carry that kind of trauma is something I can never fully understand.

☥Day 14

My mom’s a big pet lover and has lost a lot of pets over the years. Today I asked her how long she grieved following their deaths and she said that she still grieves for her dog that passed away over 10 years ago.

It’s still hitting me so hard that this beautiful creature is gone from my life.

Nearly all of the animals I’m encountering out in the world seem to know what I’m going through and go out of their way to comfort me and give me love. The other day I was sitting with a group of 4 people and a dog came over and only cuddled up to me. Another day a scrappy dog that had just been in the ocean left his owner and chased me down. He was like oh no I know what you’re going through I'm so sorry. A cat was waiting for me near my house yesterday and was cuddling up to me much like Ezmeralda used to and sprawling herself out. She was so cute, yet it reminded me of my loss and that no cat was like Ezzie and I had to bolt into the house and cry my guts out for while.

I’ve dealt with a lot of loss and upheaval in my life and it’s starting to wear me down. I sometimes don’t know how I’m going to make it through this life completely alone and living in the shadow of so many abusive friendships and relationships. But then at the Ada’itsx Fairy Creek fundraiser I saw some of the beautiful Indigenous leaders of the movement; and one local Wsanec man told us some of his family’s story - how 4 of his uncles never came home from the residential school and how his Aunt single-handedly preserved their language that he now speaks. He played flutes that he had made himself and he sang and drummed for us. An elder showed up later on and she talked about how it’s been almost one year since the first unmarked graves of Indigenous children were discovered in Kamloops - and now there have been thousands discovered at other sites. She literally carries the world on her shoulders.

Losing my cat hurts like fuck but I have to see the big picture of what’s going on in the world and what we’re fighting for as land protectors.

☥May 24

I’ve been sobbing and sobbing and sobbing for almost 2 days now, and it’s been very intense. And this morning after not being able to sleep and not being able to get up for many hours I slithered out of my bed and into the kitchen to get something to eat.

I’m really glad to have some very healthy cookies I made with quail eggs. At first I was having a hard time getting them down but I'm eating them with a hot drink and that's helping. If I think about it too much I’ll hurl, but so far, so good.

The kind of sorrow that’s been washing over me carries a heaviness that feels impossible to shake and I'm spiritually incapable of lifting myself up right now. I just have to surrender to the darkness and accept that I’m in a bad place. I never could have imagined a month ago that my cat would die and I’d be in this town completely alone and too broken to deal with getting a roommate and soon to be very broke and too fucked up to get a job right away. I have money coming my way in in the next couple of months and have a line of credit I can use for now, so I’m not getting too dramatic about it, but it's an extra weight to carry. I miss my family and the raw wilderness, and I feel like complete and utter garbage and like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into depression and isolation.

It’s painful to reflect on how long I’ve been struggling for. I started to have serious mental health struggles about 17 years ago and I’ve been trying to scrape myself out from that for many years. Over 10 years ago I quit the hard drugs and I’ve barely drank since then, and you’d think that might have improved my life; yet in a lot of ways it’s made things more difficult and alienating because I don’t even smoke pot, and it seems that most socializing revolves around some kind of substance use. And the men I’ve dated have often been very heavy into drugs and alcohol and I end up getting dragged into toxic co-dependency. I haven’t had stable housing, haven’t had stable employment and I’ve been in constant upheaval. I just haven’t been able to find anywhere that I feel safe. But will anywhere feel safe when I don’t feel safe inside of myself?

My life has been like a tilt-a whirl ride where I keep trying to make a complete circle and I can’t.. and then I’m pulled in the opposite direction and make another half circle, and then suddenly I’m spinning uncontrollably and making double circles intermittently in two different directions and it’s way too fucking fast and I can’t see what’s going on around me or make sense of anything and some greasy carny with an unironic mullet, acid wash jeans and beat up Reebooks is blasting 80’s heavy metal and sweating out a bender at the control booth. And now I’m looking back at a map of my life and it’s a scrawl of messy loops and jagged lines and I don’t know how to put it all together or go forward in any meaningful way cause I don’t even know where I’ve been or how I got here and stains of the past stick to me like an unwipeable burrito turd that keeps smearing and smearing until I finally give up and pull on my underwear, put on some dirty ass jeans and a dirty ass shirt I’ve been wearing 5 days in a row and get out in nature somewhere where there aren’t too many humans so I can see beyond my larval perceptions..

Everything feels very silent and inward drawn these past couple of days. Usually I get a text or two or someone will email me, but it’s been utterly silent and empty. I’m not texting or emailing anyone either so it’s nothing personal. Maybe this is the final purging of sludge that was culled up during a recent full moon eclipse that ate up the universe and repuked it back up in discordant chunks and swirls of goo like a rabid Fenriz on a quad-tab of Black Jesus acid.

The temptation to become a punk again is always leering in the background. I still have a beat up old leather jacket and I could start hiding behind piles of makeup again. I almost gave myself a mohawk last year but then decided I wanted to keep growing my hair out long. The truth is that I really don’t know who I am anymore. I’m never going to become conservative or be able to fit in with the modern world, it’s too late for that and just isn’t part of my ancestry. But I also don’t want to become a parody of my former self. Whatever. These things tend to sort themselves out on their own and for now I feel like it's important too just purge purge purge - it’s not a time for reinventing myself. It’s a time for blankets, lot and lots of blankets..

I’ve been thinking long and hard and feeling deeply the reality of the government I’m living under and the horrible abuses that have been enacted. It doesn’t feel good at all and it shouldn’t.

I also long for Europe, and I have for most of my life. Threads of my soul are stretched out over oceans and seeded into the moors and the alps and the sprawling farmlands of Slovakia. But this is my home now and I'm here to be a part of making changes on a soul level and taking action to heal. I know I fuck it up sometimes and I lose perspective and that I’ll be working to make amends for my entire life, but I feel like I'm part of important changes that are happening. And further generations will continue to mend the broken lands and broken spirits of land.

One time I was hitchhiking from Pemberton to Lilloet to go to Ulluilsc* and I got picked up by an older St’at’imc man and he told me his life story on the drive over. I got the feeling that he didn’t share what was in his heart with everybody and I STFU and listened hard. He talked about his community and his role in helping Indigenous youth out on his ranch. He also told me about how him and his wife have both fought for Indigenous rights since the 1970’s when they first joined the AIM movement. One question I asked him was whether he thought that his community would come through the other side of the darkness, and he was very positive about that and very sure about that. He was able to see the generations healing and getting stronger. He was a very cool person and I had forgotten about that ride so I’m glad I’m writing this all out.

I don’t know how long I slept for or how much I ate yesterday. I think I’m tired or I might just be exhausted from crying. I thought I was through the worst of grieving my cat passing, but I was just coming up for air. These past couple of days have been the most intense yet. I’m deflated and can’t even imagine going outside. That won’t happen today at all.

I’ve been crying so much that my eyes burn when I look outside to the bright white overcast sky, and when I close them I feel a ring of searing warmth around my retina.

I feel like a piece of rice paper waiting to be picked up by the wind and carried away into the void, and as if vaporizing out of existence would take no effort at all because there's nothing left of me. I’ve honked all of my life force out into snot rags and strewn them carelessly about the apartment. I’m tired as fuck and uncomfortably numb but too wired to sleep.

There are mounting mounds of messiness sprouting out all around me like mushroom fields in a musky rainforest. I’m not even doing anything but even the slightest bit of exertion seems like a triathlon so I’m doing the bare minimum of everything and letting clothes pile up – and pans, bowls, empty ziplocks, water bottles, cups, mugs, scrunched up clothes torn off while sweating and over heating in the black of the night while muzzled into the folds of the blankets. The blankets are turned 180 degrees sideways from where they started, and I took the top blanket off to use as a body cover when I went to the toilet this morning and now it’s under the larger blanket and awkwardly lumped and clumped. There’s another blanket crumpled up in the living room and I took home a box of random stuff someone was getting rid of – art supplies, a half used canvas, make-up, sunglasses and more. That’s now all strewn about in all directions. I brought bags of plastic bags and other soft plastic to recycle thinking there would be facilities here somewhere but it’s all piled up now and I have no motivation to inquire about what to do with it. There’s also all the boxes I brought with me that are half unpacked - milk crates full of old notebooks and scraps of paper, and random shit everywhere. I keep trying to grow up and keep getting bold reminders of how disorganized and immature I still am.

There’s no way I’m doing any organizing today. There’s no way I’m leaving the house. I might have a bath and watch some Invader Zim.

I didn’t turn on the heat. I thought about it and then put on some big slippers and a big wool jacket. I'm warm now.

When eclipses happen and leading up to an eclipse I often become possessed by unseen forces and then big changes like this end up happening.

I was thinking again about Nivek, the cat I rescued from a litter that every other kitten died but him. He got stuck in the air vents one time cause most of them weren't covered and he just crawled down into one and got trapped in the bowels of the heating ducts. I came home and couldn’t find him and then I could hear his feint whimpering meows echoing throughout the house. I was freaking out and hit the phone books calling contractors who might be able to help. I called many numbers and no-one would help me and then finally I came across a man who said that he would come over and have a look. He was a gruff older White guy, tall and stalky with a silver mullet and he spent hours working with various contraptions; and we had to go into the basement suite and do some tinkering down there.

He eventually got Nivek out, a previously white kitten who was now completely black with soot. He refused to take any payment from me so I offered to buy him dinner and he accepted and hung out with my roommates and I eating Chinese food. He could probably see that we were all dirt poor and the house looked like it should be condemned. When we were talking he revealed that he was a Vietnam war veteran, and that Canada had sent some soldiers over there as well. I seemed that he carried a lot of pain, yet clearly had a huge heart.

That Chinese place is still there. The last time in was in Vancouver taking care of my Aunt’s affairs, her companion offered to order Chinese, and when I looked at the menu I recognized it as the restaurant I used to order from so often.  They had the same Combo special for 2 that they had back in 1997, though instead of $20 it now cost $35. Still the best deal in town, I reckon. And you get free pop with your order.

Anyway, as I already mentioned, Nivek died on my 18th birthday, and I was crushed. Yet sitting here on this day of grieving and slothfulness, I realize that it was a landmark day because I was meant to grow up in a big way and become strong; and in the years ahead, that's what I did. Many struggles were to follow, but I made it through and finished high school and I became successful in the world and pulled myself out of deep depression and poverty.

So in the shadow of Ezzie’s death on Mother’s Day I’m trying to see through the eyes of a falcon and not get swallowed by the Swamp of Sadness.

A couple of days ago when I was walking down the street I looked up a the sun wearing sunglasses and there was a rainbow around the sun. When I took the sunglasses off I could still see the rainbow outline. I don’t know if I've ever seen that before, or if I have, I don’t remember it.

*There’s a junction in Pemberton where I’ve hitchhiked from a few times, and it’s part of the Lil’wat community. I was waiting for a ride one time and I came across a friendly crew; and when I told them I was going to Ulluilsc they told me that it was just down the block. I was like really? i think it’s further down the highway from what i remember, like a lot further down. And they were like nope, it’s right over there (pointing). Then I pulled out my hand drawn map and they all looked at it and then someone came by on a bicycle and he looked at it it too and he was like oh you’re going to the other 'Ulluilsc' and he knew about it and he told me that ‘Ulluilsc’ means gathering place in the St’at’imc language. It was the name for the community hall at Lil’Wat and also the name of the reoccupation camp past X’wisten I was on my way to visit. Lil’wat and X’wisten are both smaller Bands within the broad St’at’imc cultural group, and share many cultural traditions, though are also unique in their own right. St’at’imc are one of the largest Indigenous cultural groups in what is now called British Columbia.

☥May 25

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a y i’m going to leave my house today i’m going to leave my house today i’m going to leave my house today i’m going to leave me house today!
Don’t the black

I contemplated going back to my folks place today and calling this all off but I know that will just create another etheric rupture. I suppose this is a big wake up call as to just how jarring it is when I make these rash moves, as I've been doing for most of my life. I'm sure others feel it too, because suddenly I'm just .gone. with very little warning.

I had my mom send over what I thought was my smart phone and when it came in the mail today it turned out to be the phone of my departed Aunty. I was hoping to use my old phone to connect with some people I know here.

It’s been so silent these past few days. Just silent and empty and I'm overcome with sadness. Maybe it's better not to be distracting myself with socializing or putting myself out there in the world in any way.

I came back to the sofa above where Ezzie died again and I breathed in the lingering death smell. I held my Aunt’s phone in my hands and I felt roots growing from under my feet. I spent some time honouring the time I had with my sweet Aunty, my god mother and friend; and my sweet feline companion, the healer and the sage.

I have so many memories of time spent with my Aunty. She was like a second mom to me. I lived with her when I was a teenager for a few months, she came to my latent high school graduation from the Adult Learning Centre, she made me baked treats, she took me to her aerobics class with her at the community centre and she invited me to coffee dates with her and her lady friends. When I was in China she would send me photos of the street she lived on in Hastings Sunrise as the seasons changed and I felt a little bit less home sick. I miss her so much and I hate that she died so young.

She took him in and took care of him and then she died before he did.

Toxic masculinity.

The discomfort of recognizing one’s own privilege.

There are a lot of excuses I can make about privilege in general, and it’s true that I wasn’t exactly born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and there are far more entitled White girls abound – yet I still have had many advantages. Some of that comes from being a Westerner and some of that comes from being White. And even though I partied away most of the money I earned in the film industry, there were some years where I was making some really good cash, jet setting and living the high life. I’ve been able to travel, I've had dental care at times throughout my life, and I’ve enjoyed many comforts that aren't afforded to humanity as whole.

I think the big thing with my life is that it’s been all over the place. I spent part of my life in a sheltered mostly White town and another huge chunk of my living in low-income multicultural neighbourhoods.

I’ve come to realize that a lot of my mental health issues and inability to feel grounded are about not being able to connect to the lands that I was born on because on a spiritual and ancestral level, these aren’t my lands. There's some deep healing that needs to happen, and the more that we try to run away from the realities of how these lands were settled, the more we’ll suffer from mental and spiritual ails.

How not to destroy myself completely when purging the blackness from my soul? How not to see what’s happening to me as the ultimate truth of all existence when it’s the most powerful force I’ve ever felt and the most real thing in my life - to feel such punching pain, like being kicked in the solar plexus repeatedly, but then something else too that’s more than physical that’s wants to disappear me and consume me completely. How not to confuse that with reality when it keeps coming back so strongly and tugs at me throughout the days saying hey I’m still here you can’t ignore me, I’m coming for you.

It’s like free diving. You can’t go down so deep that you won’t have enough air left in your lungs to swim back up to the surface and breathe again and see the sun.

What I saw the other day wasn’t an illusion, others have been posting about it on Reddit. It was a fucking rainbow encircling the sun, and so ridiculously magical. Why can’t that penetrate into me as deeply as rejection, loss and loneliness? I think it can. I’m updating the software of my soul to be more open to beauty and wonder.

I’m floating around in a daze today and tripping over things and bumping into things. I went into a bike store and the guy in there was so kind to me. Suddenly being out in public made how fucked up I am inside extra apparent to me and I couldn’t figure out which way to put my bike in a bike rack and he was asking me questions about my day and I could barely answer and was tripping over my words. He seemed a bit nerdy too and I didn’t feel judged. People often tell me that they think I look like I have my shit together when I don’t or that I don’t seem as messed up as I feel inside. So maybe he just thought I was cute and endearing rather than an emotional wreck barely holding herself together, ready to have an exorcism if someone says the word “cat.”

cat cat cat cat cat

I’m dead.

☥May 26

The neighbours I’ve met out on the street around here so far are so freaking nice, and it feels more like a small town than a city in this little bubble here. Four people have reached out to talk to me and 2 neighbours brought me treats.

I feel kind of hyper self-conscious about how isolated I've been and wonder if they sense that something is up. I also feel a bit ashamed of myself and today when I saw that my neighbour was across the street I made my dinner in the dark so he wouldn’t see that I was home. I'm just not used to having this many people around me. I miss the solitude of the forest and the comfort of my trailer. And I miss Ezzie.. I'm not okay.

☥May 27

The Children Who Never Came Home

☥May 28

Final catharsis. Menses. Exhaustion.

It’s getting close to 3 weeks now since my cat-child left this earthly realm. Today was the beginning of my moon-time and I was feeling especially introverted and full of sorrows. I slapped on whatever random clothes I could find that looked cozy and threw a giant wool sweater over top of a sports bra and then pinned it closed with a safety pin. The floral pants I’m wearing are high wasted and I hate high wasted pants so I folded the top down several times in a messy band. I’m wearing rainbow slippers my Aunty knit for me and parts of them are also held together with safety pins. My hair is naturally quite curly, and dry, and frizzy, and thin, and does strange things throughout the night. It’s flopped awkwardly in the back and scraggly all around.

I was standing in the kitchen listening to Talk Talk again slow cooking some cheap BC grown hot house tomatoes making some delicious tortilla soup when I heard the fucking door bell ring. I was like what the fuck? who the fuck is it? no one knows i’m here! what the fuck? should i answer it? I hesitantly made my way over to the door and there was a woman standing there with a bowl in her hand and she said that she was the neighbour from across the street and asked me “Do you know Takoyaki?” I was like “Oh my godds ya, I lived in Japan for 3 months, mostly in Osaka! Thank you so much!! Hold on a minute..” I quickly scrambled and found some of the cookies I had made with the quail eggs from the other neighbour and gave those to her. I asked her what her name was. She said it was “Keiko”, the name of my Aunt’s bird I was taking care of for many months, my other best buddy from the animal kingdom.

Rainbows around the sun and Keiko’s human doppelganger fluttering over from across the street to present me with Japanese street food. Thanks Great Spaghetti Monster.

☥May 29

Those of us who grew up in violent, alcoholic, dysfunctional homes often end up with a complex where we think that everything is our fault all of the time and deeply internalize any bad thing that happens as if we’re somehow responsible. We may walk on eggshells around others and concede to those with big personalities and can end up attracting people into our lives who think that nothing is ever their fault and who will lash out at us. And, interestingly, those who think that nothing is ever their fault also often grew up in similar homes. Then comes the dance between the self-deprecating co-dependant and the egotistical alcoholic, biting and scratching at each others wounds - and the promise of healing is betrayed by further trauma and abandonment.

It’s been hard for me to admit that I’ve been abused because I was such a punk ass when I was younger, and in many ways I’ve projected strength, and at times I speak out and stand up for what seems morally sound. Yet in my most intimate relationships I end up being a doormat: people pleasing, over giving, conceding, tolerating abuse and taking on other’s people pain as if it’s my own. It’s so deeply embedded and so unconscious that I rarely realize I’m doing it until after the fact and then I’m like, DOH!

I don’t know how to crawl out from what seems like a black hole of endless pain and complication. I don’t think anyone should stay in an abusive relationship. But it really fucking sucks and hurts like fuck to walk away from someone when there’s a soul bond and shared trauma. The pain is searing. The desire to connect is so powerfully overwhelming.

I gave this last person who I loved so many opportunities to come forward and heal and was as kind as I could be. But in the end he chose not to. He chose to continue abusing drugs and alcohol and playing immature power games to feed his ego. He lives the life he lives and continues to suffer because of his personal choices and behaviour, not because of me. It’s nice to have a scapegoat. It takes the pressure off of having to deal with one’s own pain and go through difficult personal growth.

I can’t be that for him, or anyone else anymore.

At the same time, I have to acknowledge that there were times throughout my life that I behaved narcissistically and was unkind to others who were more vulnerable than me, and I used to be very cut off from my feelings. I think that narcissism and empathy are spectrums that are fluid.

I guess now that I can reflect better on these complex dynamics, I can seek more of a balance. It’s good to be accountable when one’s behaviour really hasn’t been cool and we all have situations like that come up in our lives. But it’s not cool to feel hyper responsible for everything, or get dumped on.

My friend Bramble made an altar for Ezmeralda and sent me a picture. I’m crying silently in the coffee shop, hoping no one sees me.

☥May 31 2022

New moon vibes are vibing high today. I decided to do some weeding and landscaping in the front yard and there was an elderly man doing the same next door. He was very friendly and exuded gentle fatherly strength and casually plucked some fluff from my hair as we were chatting without seeming creepy at all.

I was digging up dandelions for making roasted dandelion coffee substitute and he dug some up for me as well with a special tool that he had. He’s a hired hand and has been working for my neighbour for 25 years. The neighbour's teenage son came out and was leaving the house with a pack of his friends. One of them was wearing a Nirvana shirt and they left without stopping and then the handyman gave them some shit, as they were supposed to help him. We talked about the laziness of the younger generations and I was more forgiving than he was. He had a thick French accent and told me that he was 80 years old, which is incredible, as he looked like he was in his 60’s. Then he told me about the residential school (I think he said it was St. Anne’s) that he went to and how he’s been working since he was 9 years old and will work until he dies and will live another 20 years. I believe him.

One of the other neighbours stopped by and while we were talking he made a casual comment about wanting to “blow his brains out”. I think a lot of people feel that way these days – myself included. A part of me wanted to ask if he was okay, but I decided not to. I figure it will come out eventually if we keep chatting, as people tend to spill their guts out to me naturally. I also realized that I just don’t want to hear it right now. I’m full.

That same day a group of young children between the ages of 3-5 walked by the house. I've seen them and heard them before, and today they stopped right in front of where I was gardening and a little girl with gigantic round blue eyes looked over at me and very straight up asked, “Why haven't’ you come outside of your house? We’ve come by here every day and you never came out of your house for like 20 days?” Nothing gets past the all-seeing eyes of children.. I was like well, I can tell you but it’s a bit upsetting, are you ready? They were all wide-eyed, and so I told them that my cat died and that I was really sad and didn’t want to talk to anybody for a long time. Another kid asked “but why were you so sad?” And I said that I felt very close with my cat and to have her abruptly gone was really difficult, and then the wide blue-eyed girl said “was it like the cat was your only friend that you had?” It was kind of embarrassing to admit it out loud in front of a posse of kids but I was like ya, kind of like that. And then I told them that it was okay, and that death is a part of life and that she didn’t suffer at all - and it was her time to go, and that when stuff like that happens you have to stay on the roller coaster ride of life and hold on tight. They were like oh. Then they told me about all the cool insects that they were finding and that they were on their way to the park.

☥June 4 2022

My neighbour had a party last night and invited me over. At first I thought that there was no way I would go over there, and then I heard the milieux and it sounded pretty chill and I do need to start getting out there in the world again...

As I ruminated over whether to go or not a flood of memories from my early teens in the West Kootenays came up to the surface. I was remembering all of the hippie parties that I went to and all of the flaky hippy friends that I had – and how I saw beneath the mask of free-spirited openness and how that whole scene seemed so self-absorbed, entitled, and full of creepy dudes. And how no one actually seemed to be living a sustainable lifestyle despite making a big deal about being environmental activists and adopting such radical and alternative fashion styles. It seemed to belie so much middle class privilege and arrogance.

When I was first trying to get into activism and be a part of some of the protests that were going on, people were often closed off, unfriendly and condescending; and it felt more like an exclusive social clique than an all encompassing movement that could address the brutal social and environmental devastation going on all around. It scared me away from activism for many years.

Not all the hippies were like that. There were still some real hippies out in the boonies of Slocan Valley and beyond who were sincere, but they were few and far between. And after a few years of being a hardcore hippie myself I was drawn into the dark side and got into extreme underground subcultures. It seemed more sincere to me and it seemed like a more accurate reflection of the world that I was living in. It was also a big fuck you to all of the fake hippy nonsense that I was surrounded by - and a way of coping with the rejection I felt. I often felt used and looked down on by the more popular and socially adept hippie girls who would treat me like an accessory or use me for a place to stay when they came from Slocan Valley to Nelson, and then ditch me when they met up with friends who they thought were more high status than me. I was shy and awkward, then would overcompensate by talking too much and would sometimes say weird shit because I was nervous (or just because I was in to weird shit!). I always did better with one-on-one conversations than in a big group or a big party, but I’d force myself into social situations that didn’t feel comfortable because of peer pressure and wanting to be cool..

Last night a giant ball of anxiety starting burning in my chest as I recalled scenes from my youth and how I'd take acid, pot or shrooms and it would just make things worse and I'd usually look for somewhere to hide, or just leave any social situation I ended up in. One time I hid under a table at a house party in Nelson. Another time I walked home for 12 miles from the top of Sproule creek to get away from a boring hippie party with stuck up “cool” people. And thinking back on it, I was probably the youngest one there at 13 or 14 years old and they were all so stoned out of their minds and wrapped up in their scene that no one even batted an eyelash when I disappeared. That was a long hard walk and I slept in ditches on the side of the highway a couple of times, and that last stretch up the hill to my house was agonizing - but I made it. And it was worth it to get away from those fucking hippies.

Anyway, I’m lying there on my bed and all the times that I felt ditched, anxious, or overwhelmed came boiling up to the surface and then I'm like i don’t know if i can go to this party.. but I could hear that it was a really nice get together, and everyone I've met here and all the neighbours around seem really great and not stuck up at all and I knew that all of my anxieties were unfounded. So I did some breath-work and walked over...

I entered the house and looked around and it was an exceptionally cool place that looked like it could be in Slocan Valley or on Cortes Island rather than in a city, with a lot of custom wood detailing in the interior and a warm and inviting atmosphere. I met some people on the way out to the back and they were really friendly and one of them lived around the corner. I went out to the yard, met the host who invited me, talked to the guy whose birthday it was, and his girlfriend.. I hung out for a few more minutes and then I wished them a good night and I left. The person who's birthday it was was like “that’s it, you’re going?”. I told him that I was a hermit and it was a big deal for me even to come over at all. I then walked back through the cozy old house and back over to where I was staying and then I threw myself on my bed like a 13 year-old in a bad teen movie. I started thinking about my cat and how she used to sleep in this little cupboard in my trailer and how it was the cutest fucking thing ever, and I starting bawling my eyes out because I missed her so bad.

Then I started bawling my eyes out because I'm a socially crippled 42 year-old who can’t even hang out at a party for more than 5 minutes without having a meltdown. I’ve been trying to pretend I'm not as sensitive as I actually am for my entire life, and I don’t even know how to deal with it. 

I also realized last night that I’m bushed. I’m used to the owls and the frogs and the big starry sky all around me..

I fell asleep to the party sounds outside and went to another version of the party in my dreams that was much larger and out int he countryside. There was a woman singing folk songs about not wanting to get vaccinated in front of a huge crowd. 

I got a job yesterday, at the place I was hoping to work at. I'm pretty happy about that.

Also: it’s okay that I'm not big into parties and don't like to drink or do drugs anymore. I wish I would have recognized that when I was younger and not tried so hard to be extroverted.

☥June 9 2022

Maybe this is the end of my cat death diary. I cried tonight and I’m sure I’ll cry more. Tomorrow I start my first training shift at one of my new jobs. It was so freaky: I applied for a second job and it turned out that the owner was the mother of one of the people I’m subletting for and I met her years ago when I first started doing old growth activism. We had talked a lot through Signal when I was at the recent blockade but we all had secret camp names so I didn’t recognize who she was. Victoria is a pretty darn small city and I keep running into people and seeing familiar faces around.

If you made it to the end of this thank you for reading, and if you want to share your thoughts or your own stories of losing a pet down below, I’d love to hear it.                

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