Enjoy the Journey

It's difficult. It's not difficult. It's only difficult because we make it so. When we let others get to us, when we take it on, when we make assumptions and when we don't do our best - that's when it's difficult.

I am trying to reinstate a few arts.

1. The art of doing nothing, being still.
2. The art of joy.

3. The art of gratefulness - grateful for my life, that glorious adventure.

I wish to take this path. I actively walk this path. I stray. I slip. I get up. I start again. It's my life, my great adventure. Everyday is a gift, a surprise and a treasure. There are blessings in a smile given or received, a bird bathing in a fountain, a blue sky day or a raindrop on a perfect, pink summer blossom. The key is presence. Remain present. Enjoy the journey.

-Gillian Cornwall, July 17, 2012.

A Woman Worn

You are ripped up. 
You are the lost sock.
You are the windblown,
dirt-sodden,
slightly shredded flyer;
an event passed while you were plastered to a tire,
going around and around and around.
You are the petals on the sidewalk,
dropped from the hanging basket,
more pretty than cement, 
no longer a flower,
no longer power.

-Gillian Cornwall, 2010.

Gay Community Airlines - A post for Pride

Being part of the gay community is a bit like flying; not in the Peter Pan kind of way, rather in the airplane way - but it's more like flying with WestJet than Air Canada. At least you have a sense that you belong on the plane and you all know you're going to the same place; nonetheless, we're only on this plane together because we're different from the other passengers and it feels safer for all of us to be together than it does to be scattered to the winds - individually bullied into coach when we're all quite certain we've paid and paid to go first class.

The thing is though, just like any other flight, you've voluntarily chosen to lock yourself into a metal tube with 300 strangers and the metal tube is going to be blasted into the air by igniting jet fuel and the whole dog and pony show is controlled by somebody you have never seen who is cloistered behind a bullet-proof, locked door. W T F

So we're separate
but we're together
but if we are all separate together in this one place - aren't we a bit like fish in a barrel? So, off we all go post-weekend, post-Pride, post-coitus to return to the job, the apartment building, the subway - and we're surrounded by others, most likely straight others, and we go back to what it felt like to be separate, like high school, and we're oh so careful and oh so good and we let things go because we don't want to be punched - again, and we don't want to risk our jobs - again and we don't want anyone to feel bad - ever, and we can take it - we're freaking invincible.

The fact is, I still have the fear, I still look over my shoulder, I still hear the voice and I cringe before the first blow strikes.

-Gillian Cornwall, c June 2012

Women

I remember the layers I've peeled from women
- t-shirts, dresses, secrets and fears.
I remember the passion, the exploration
and discovery.

I have known women,

loved well by some,
left for dead by others.

There are those who have taken this me-lump of marble,
chipped and shaped to a pleasing form.

There are those who fell into my skin
to wear as sheep's clothing.

If you think I have forgotten you,
I have not.

Each of you pass through,
pushing through cells,
clattering doors and windows,

eyeing, spying each other,

eyeing, spying me

from the inside

out.

-Gillian Cornwall, c July 1, 2012