She liked to party
That was the glaring truth of it
Wished she regretted it,
Hated herself for it
Tried to change it
But she didn’t

She liked the freedom of it
The randomness of it
The unexpected turns of a good night
The anticipation right before it
And it never wore off

She didn’t play dress up
Or select places through a filter
Newness, elite crowd, particular table always waiting
Picture perfect shots with beautiful lit backgrounds
The right kind of men begging to take care of bills

She wanted open spaces and familiar faces
Friendly waiters and waitresses
First name basis
“The usual?” Yes, please Mark, you know it
“Who’s playing the music? Can I listen to that song whose title I can’t remember?”

Laughter, loud laughter
Food, quick tasty food
Silly washed out jokes told in a new context
Terrible dance moves in the wee hours
Mornings of hilarious recollections

Married to a man that works in the oil rigs
Work for a strong honest man, you know?
The kind that works just for his family
Never wanting more than to keep them happy
Or less than that, really
Not trying to be better than the next door neighbor
Not asking his family to live in squalor either

The comfort of routine
Knowing what happens at each hour of each day
Going home at the end of a gruelling day
to a sweet smelling kitchen
And a daughter waiting to play the crossword puzzle together
Kissing his girls bye on his way to work
The one in bed, the other at the kitchen counter
Familiarity

But then, calamity doesn’t search for bad people
Calamity shows up at the doorstep of the least expected victims
Ready for a long visit
Everything once believed in is ashambles
Things once meticulously planned are on a day to day basis
What does tomorrow hold!?

I initially thought that the word mascot wasn’t so different from the word clown
I thought they both referred to people dressed up in silly ways, amusing the kids, and being bullied by the old people

I thought they were both just costumes in which people who wore them felt desperate to be seen, as themselves

Not as funny, playful things, things to be pushed around by amused kids, or to be hurled water at by rude teenagers and drunk adults
Not as the object on show, given one minute by each child or by stadiums of fans
To then be forgotten about when the real interesting stuff starts
You know, Christmas dinners or the big game everyone has been waiting for

So they’ve both always given me a feeling of sadness, of wanting to help

My intention was to write about a mascot and how we we play mascot in our daily lives

Being the source of fun for different people
While wishing we were seen as more than the funny guy
Being pushed to do things we’d rather not to do, either to fit in, or to earn a living
Wearing images of happiness and carefree lives while struggling with such crazy inner battles
And wanting to shout at your audiences,  “Hey, no, I’m not okay, I don’t want to be this person”

Taking off the costume at the end of day and wondering if maybe you’re better off with the idealism that comes with your costume
Because pretending to be happy around a group of people is so much easier than facing your weaknesses and unfulfilled desires regarding who you really want to be, in private, on your own, in silence and /or darkness

Today I found out that mascot has a whole other meaning, “a thing that is supposed to bring good luck”
And I smiled, it wasn’t all gloom and doom!
I’ve planned to write about mascots for a while now
And then before I start to write I google the word, and guess what? Good luck!!
Who knew!! Not me, that’s for sure!!

So now, knowing that we get back what we give out (atleast in the world of attitude)
I figure on the days of “mascot-ing”, perhaps we can bring in the good luck we are giving out

So many candles, lined up on walls

Set beside beautiful flowers on long tables

So long some of them seem to be standing on their own….
It’s blinding
I’m smiling
The beauty in anticipation….
The corridor is long, I must get to my lover’s
arms
Must declare my love, I have deprived him too
long
The trip was useful, I thought clearly about
things
Now I must do my part
The silent corridor taunts me
I have a strange feeling in my gut
I am no longer sure it’s the anticipation
Oh well
The letters had so many underlying messages
Too many puns for my weak heart, methinks
I like things straight up, see
My mother is a very honest woman
I saw a white dress on my way into town
I turned away quickly
I have always been rush
My lover, bless him, is the more rational one, I
love him for it.
The song I’m singing says ‘I think of gold dust
when I think of you’
He played his guitar, looked me in the eye and
made it sound so personal, I blushed
‘Too elusive, my love’ he always said
Has it really been a year?
The memories are so fresh
It’s important that I speak with him
Could he have turned into gold dust?
The love threatens to overwhelm me
I long to show him how I feel
Damn this corridor
Now I must run….
Allan likes the image of me running
Only God knows why
The sight of Allan
Oh my love, this is like Christmas
Forget about gold dust
Your arms surround me and all else is
forgotten
XO

It was evident that everyone liked their time in the limelight
Their five minutes of fame

It was a tight knit group
Filled mostly with men who slapped each other’s backs when they did attempt to hug
And spread their legs as widely as possible when they sat
One knee shaking full time; a man, after all, has a lot on his mind
Their pride was obvious, the kind of pride that men feel is compulsory to wear
The kind that decides on what small things he can or can’t do, in the most extreme of circumstances
And then helps him portray it to his fellow men
“You best follow my lead,” the stance says as he draws lines

They talked about women in dismissive terms
Jokes and claims that they couldn’t deal with female drama, that they avoided it as much as they could
You usually found out differently later

They were not bad men, no
They were just men who knew that to maintain a certain image of themselves
They had to do these things

But then their five minutes in the limelight came
And they smiled, and blushed
Nicknames were called out, war stories told
And you had them
They were little happy girls, glad to be the centre of attention just for five minutes

See I like bright lights and fresh air
I like listening to loud laughter at a distance
And silent laughter in close proximity
I love loud parties
I love to open windows first thing in the morning
I like to feel the sun on my skin
See the rain through the window
I love to see new places
And see people with different cultures go about life
I like brightly coloured living rooms
Sun streaming in
And bedrooms with open windows
Breeze soothing my skin

There’s a freedom that comes with a hotel room, you know
The knowledge that you don’t owe
Yourself, forget anyone else
It’s the no responsibility place
We might admit, we might not
It does take the pressure down a notch

There’s a freedom in the night
The company is tight
We used to say “leisure time”
We were in our prime

Meh

Some people might call it going rogue
Maybe in a way it sounds wrong

But not now, it’s a fragile thing
Don’t take out the sting
No better time than the now
Let’s live for now

Count your blessings

There’s nothing like loyalty, like love, like friendship
There’s nothing like the same page
Like knowing someone the way they know you

Love is fleeting
Loyalty is precious
Trust is priceless

If the world were perfect
We’d all understand
That the people we love
Can’t always be the people we want

My thoughts are ahead of me
I try, I’m trying
I can’t keep up
Maybe if I caught up I’d lose it
Small mercies

We give it our best
We wake up, and we shoot
We have bad days, we blame it on random stuff
But maybe it’s us
Maybe it’s our view on life messing with us

The movies, they seem ridiculous
But not really though
We just have to be willing to learn
Life’s like that

Open up

I’m talking to myself,

It’s so quiet in here

It’s a place to dream, it’s twelve

I’m on dream number three

They say three times is the charm

I say three is a crowd fam,

What if we took it down a notch

And two was enough for my pouch

See we all got goals, yeah?

The idea is to go far

How about we erase the line

There’s doubles after number nine

Chill mode is only the aftermath

Party planners join in after we hit the mark

Focus puts things in perspective

Let’s think of this stage as the collective

Maybe its not hunger, you know?

The emptiness you feel?

Maybe what you think you feel is all wrong

Simply confusion because of things undone’

Words unsaid, conversation not had

Maybe its all the things you are neglecting

Although you know without a doubt

That you need them, want them

Maybe its the passion within you

Left unfulfilled, unpursued

There’s a hole, you feel it, you’re aware of it

Perhaps you even know how to fill it

But doubt gnaws at you, sends self conviction out

Even extreme modesty at times,

“Why do I think I could pull that off?”

So you find diversions,

And fill all the small holes around the big one

Its obscured for sometime, you know

A snack for a starving man

Proverbial sip of water in the desert

After a while, well, back to square one

Its gaping and you’re confused, so you go back in time

There was a time when you did things right, yeah?

What was that piece of the puzzle?

What was that thing that pushed you? Do you want it back?

Or do you want to recognize it, deal with it and find new inspiration?

Curve out a new path for yourself?

At the end of the day, we are who we are, right?

Some things are set in stone, truth

But stones move too, they break, shutter

Like the sun out of the cloud, its a new day, new goals,new ways

History informs the future

But also the present is a blank page

Waiting to be filled.

We could fill it with old memories, good and bad

Or we could create new ones.