"would you mind closing my wall for me?"

one wall of my bedroom is actually a closet door. on the other side of this wall is the living room. i live with two other people: my sister and my mother. while we three lived together for 16 years (along with my dad), living together today is different than the days of ye olde curfew. we have all experienced living situations without one another: i moved to fredericton; kelly just finished her first year in residence at msvu; mom and dad occupied our family home in cape breton all by their lonesomes (and liked it). with dad's admittance into an intensive care unit came mom's need to re-locate her home to halifax. after two months of bed-and-breakfast living she gave in to her desire for her own, personal space and signed a lease for a two-bedroom apartment. my sister, who studies in halifax and wanted to stay for the summer anyway, moved in. i then wrapped up my final year at st. thomas and moved in as well.

we live together both out of necessity and convenience. it is necessary to live with one another at this point so that we may support one another on bad days, so that we may grieve and worry for dad with each other and celebrate his victories together. convenience comes in to play when considering a rent split three ways, house-keeping duties divided evenly and shared travels to-and-from various institutions and establishments.

i (somehow) lucked-out and have my own bedroom. my sister and my mother share the other one. as one might imagine, tensions rise and fall quickly thanks to close-quarter living in an unfamiliar place. and, again, we've all grown very comfortable living apart from each other. to throw us all under one roof again, for a long period of time, with two of us sharing one bedroom is to throw off privacy and alone time. in our melee of stress, new jobs, old habits and strange excuses for walls, we've unintentially built up an interesting household dynamic...because alone time is so rare now, because we often feel like we live on top of one another, because we feel stuck between an era that reminds us of childhood and a fairly-new stage of life in adulthood we have newfound abilities to ignore one anothers' criticisms (usually) and embrace each others' bits of bizarre. we've learned to laugh more at little things and grump less over even smaller things.

things aren't perfect and neither are we. we have our occasional, collective meltdowns and sometimes dig too deeply at wounds not yet healed. besides that, though, apologies come quickly and genuinely and wins outweigh losses. we all have something enormous in common: our main man, the daddio, has been in-and-out of critical illness for over four months. dad's condition and the changes in it have turned us into iron-ladies who can take in and consider bad news with still hopeful hearts and sit with our dad shackled with wires, drips, monitors and a respirator and still manage to get him to crack a few smiles. his seemingly-endless visit in the i.c.u. has also sucked a lot of life from us: we are all under-rested and over-tense.

help for such exhaustion often comes in the form of naps or laughter. as stated in the first paragraph, my wall is actually a closet door. it is wooden and is painted white and often bursts open at the most inopportune moments (such as when i happen to be changing clothes, for example). what would normally annoy me to no end and what seemingly adds to the pile of privacy-free traits of shared-apartment life has, unexpectedly, become hilarious. i need not even go to the door of my room to answer a ringing telephone: i can simply bust down my wall! if the cat wants to come in for a vist, she needs only to nudge the wall in a certain direction to allow herself in. when the wall mysteriously slides open (running the risk of causing the need to blush and hide) there is usually someone on the other side of it, able and willing to shut it gently for me (and save me some dignity). life is good.

something comforting

as stated in my introductory post, i recently moved to halifax from fredericton. i've discovered occasional bumps in the road regarding finding a new groove here (the merriam-webster online dictionary offers the following definitions for groove: 1. a long, narrow channel or depression; 2. (a) a fixed routine (see: rut), 2. (b) a situation suited to one's abilities or interests (see: niche); ...6. a pronounced, enjoyable rhythm). my potential groove, i am certain, is a combination of the offered definitions. i recognize that finding a new path-routine-niche-rhythm is not something i can logically expect to just (poof!) happen but i did hope to feel a deeper level of comfort by this point.

i often take a bus home from work, today was no exception. a note on the halifax transit system: it's pretty dismal (though inexpensive and a suggested environmentally-friendly idea) and it provides often unpleasant experiences for both passenger and driver. so, today, i witnessed something wonderful: smiling faces on the bus! people talking to each other! a (scary) lack of text-messaging and blackberry-ing! it was amazing.

i walked into the bus and the driver waited for me to sit down before driving. no falling in front of strangers (always a plus)! i sat down safely and looked around at a group of people (assumedly old friends) sitting ahead of me. they were laughing with one another and it was wildly infectious. the driver, myself and nearly every person sitting within seeing-abilities was cracking up alongside the group at the front. their conversation wasn't ha-ha stand up comedy-hour funny...no jokes were cracked...it was just friendly "how are you? remember this time?" funny and wanted or not, all passengers (sans ipod, naturally) couldn't help but get involved.

maybe it seems ridiculously sad to have a miniature groovy-break thanks to a pleasant transit experience. people communicate all of the time, there isn't anything necessarily special in that. how people communicate, though, offers space for creativity and speciality: accents, slang, expressions (facial and verbal), physical actions and emotional reactions are all elements that are built-up or knocked-down by one another... and, while text-messaging _does_ offer some level of communication, it limits communication to a set number of words-per-message and removes vis-a-vis immediacy and potential for group involvement (which, admittedly, may not always prove to be so lovely as today).

i ultimately think that my lack of groove has something to do with an abundance of cold weather and cold halifax attitudes lately. it's true that i do not know as many people here as i do in fredericton. it is also true that it took me four years to develop the relationships i share there. today's ride home on the bus reminded me of the infectious smiles shared in past, and, equally important, potential for future grins. my groove is not yet dug or composed but i am now equipped with a shovel and a harmonica.

hark, a smirk!

aware that i am certainly _not_ the first person to "discover" www.harkavagrant.com, i still urge every eye which reads these words to visit it. please peruse as many comics as physically possible in one sitting: you will not regret it (especially if you happen to be a history buff).

kate beaton (the cartoonist)'s comics are canadian! she is from nova scotia and received a degree from mount allison university in history and anthropology. her comics are generally inspired by canonical literature, canadian, british and american history and there are even a handful of comics based on pop culture (see: "macarena" underneath archives).

a personal favorite: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=187
oh, queen victoria! you are so zany!

enjoy, friends.

brilliance.

last night:
heard thunder coming from the kitchen.
mom was in bed; kelly was not home.
i was also in bed.

i grumbled and flung myself from my nest.
i walked into the kitchen.
silence.

i turned my back, irritated, and trudged to my door.
the thunder recommences; i trudge back.
the cupboard door is wiggling....

...it opens wider,
then shuts.
this happens twice and i reach for the handle and i yank it open and i'm not afraid because:

my cat is in the cupboard, nudging her bag of whiskas.
her food dish was not empty.
this makes me think one or more of the following is true of her:

1. she is, sometimes, in her bitty brain, a sort-of adventurous goat.
2. she has an eating disorder.
3. she is brilliant.

bienvenue!

hello (!) reader-friend,

a quick welcome to my (upcoming) collection of mercurial highs, lows, loves, loathes and the various wiggly-bits that stick in my brains and guts.

my name is jenna and i moved to halifax (nearly) one month ago. i graduated from st. thomas university just over two weeks from this day.

i did not plan to move to halifax. in fact, i was looking forward to a scrubby (and probably dirt-poor), beatnik life in toronto post-graduation.

these impending blog-words for sharing will, i hope, slowly unravel the causes and consequences of an unexpected new living situation in the maritimes.

with that, i ask you to keep an open mind and flighty-fingers. send me your comments and suggestions! check back often, stay in touch.