Sylvie Hill

And I Will Go With Flow

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory.
I thought of your beautiful white face
And thin body on Queen Mary Street
And your apron when you cooked us dinner
As I watched Three’s Company.
1982 was my best year, it seemed.

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight closing the light was an inkling.
I felt your apathy, your indifference to motherhood
How sometimes you loved me, other times, not so good.
How you could have done without us
That it was apparent in your indifference.
And that’s anxiety: always wanting your love.

The concern of “I don’t belong here”
The worry of “why am I here”
Any situation where one needs to feel deserving
Forget it, I was always looking over a shoulder repeatedly.
Maybe THIS time, she’ll like me!
Maybe THIS time, she’ll keep loving me!
Oh mother where are thou when you are far away
Choosing to watch Coronation Street than talk to me?

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory.
How as a child to adult I carried your uncertainty
Trying so hard to ignore your ambivalence toward me
But what relief to leave Ottawa, your womb, and divorced memories
For a city of my choosing, and my new start just for me.
I will never return to Ottawa – never a home for me.
I have no home, there are no roots, I have no family.

What governs my address is – money.
What decides my postal code is – apartment vacancy.
Where I want to be – San Francisco living.
Or an island in fresh air running a café, serving humanity.
So I go there in my poetry
Forming attachments between my feelings
being awed at mysteries
And feeding off little fantasies.

Why just today I was hiking with my cocker in Marin
And taking a beer in Big Sur!
Bathing in my bath tub in open air
And grabbing a wine in Sausalito with her.
I was inviting you back to my café
And helping a customer with a wheelchair get in
I was wiping mustard on my apron
I was taking foreign cash from my clients
I was planning for a new menu board
While doing social media posts for tourism.

It has been a very, very long while since I’ve felt anxiety.
And in bed tonight upon retiring was its memory.
Say, I reckon the further I have ventured away from my family
The healthier I have become, secure in my sanity.
But I’ve no roots like a tree in a community.
Let me float like a breeze that cools sufferers on hot days.
Let me be a big blue sky that cheers up melancholic ways.

See my rootlessness as my goodness
And my floating, a lily pad for snails, frogs, if you must
Like a ship with no anchors, current take me as you wish
Without anxiety sogging my soul, let the lightness like a breeze
…take me where it will.

And I will go with flow and ease
No more pushed or dragged by anxieties.

Sylvie Hill, Montreal, September 27, 2019