Black Dot Diary

Lilla Cabot Perry, “The Black Hat”

Johnny Cash once sang, “I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, /​Livin’ in the hope­less, hun­gry side of town…” I love Johnny Cash but that’s not why I wear black. I don’t wear black because I’m depressed either. Or to look thin. Or to look mysterious.

I wear black because when I’m wrapped in it, I feel authen­tic. I love its inky mys­tery, its sub­tlety, its rebel­lion con­trasted with its chaste dark­ness, its time­less­ness. When I wear black, I feel ener­gized, per­haps because this non-​colour absorbs all light in the color spec­trum. It’s all there.

I have no idea what will hap­pen on Decem­ber 21, 2012 when the Mayan cal­en­dar ends. Maybe the world will end. Maybe it won’t. Maybe the poles will shift? Maybe the Earth’s axis will wob­ble? Maybe.

I do know there are lots of peo­ple mak­ing money out of 2012 and the shelves in book­stores are fill­ing up with tomes on the end of the world as we know it. On the cor­ner of a major inter­sec­tion in Vic­to­ria where I live, a bedrag­gled guy holds a sign warn­ing of the wages of sin and the end times. Funny, I thought I saw the same guy hold­ing the same sign in Van­cou­ver in 1970.

A wise woman told me last week that it’s impor­tant to show grat­i­tude for the things we value in our lives so the uni­verse knows we are open to its gifts. As social writer and working-​class philoso­pher Eric Hof­fer said, “The hard­est arith­metic to mas­ter is that which enables us to count our blessings.”

I often think about what I’m grate­ful for, but I don’t say it nearly enough. So here goes.…

1. The drum­ming song of rain on the flat roof of my house.

Strange sym­me­try in the sky in Rosagnio, Italy. Photo by http://​www​.chrisholt​pho​tos​.com

I had a crappy day today. Sick on the sofa with too many thoughts hang­ing around. My par­rot Ben­nie kept me good com­pany. She has recently started say­ing my name a lot. “Kerry, c’mere,” she calls me. “Kerry, love you.”

I love that she loves me. In fact, we are a lot alike — pas­sion­ate, full of life and prone to bite when we are fright­ened or frus­trated. My Mom used to say I was moody. I’m not sure I’m moody any­more but some days I just can’t seem to get lift off. It often hap­pens after a few weeks of heavy social­iz­ing (which I love) but then the intro­vert in me craves alone-​time and I crash.

Photo by fauxto_​digit

The moon phases appli­ca­tion on iGoogle said the moon was 100% full last night. Google is like God, right, so this must be true?

I swear I could feel the full­ness even if Google hadn’t told me and I couldn’t see with my own eyes that lus­cious golden ball in the sky.

My cats felt some­thing in the air too — those boys were crazy last night, even with­out the cat­nip. The dogs down at the four way hon­oured the moon with wolfish howl­ing. Teenagers pulled up the stop signs at the crossroads.

What’s it like to be on stage with U2? I never dreamed I’d ever find out. But life is full of twists, turns and gifts as I dis­cov­ered at U2’s Van­cou­ver show on Octo­ber 28, 2009.

U2’s music has been with me through a lot of my life — births, cel­e­bra­tions, deaths, dances, epipha­nies. Their music takes me to the same place I go when I’m writ­ing poetry — the almost-​undefinable, mag­i­cal place where the poetry gets lift off and seems to write itself.