At Sunnybrooke Hospital in Toronto is a house called Wellspring. Standing in front of it is a woman, jubilant and free, basking in the world and cut with beautiful filligree. She is crafted of sheet metal and seems to represent the dancing health most of the people who visit the house asipre towards. The walls house a cancer support and healing program with many facets contained. There are holistic healing classes, raiki, qi gong, tai chi, yoga, art therapy, even a journaling workshop to name a few. There is a lending library, coffee and tea, as well as friendly staff to speak to when feeling lonely, scared, inquisitive or anything, really.

The house touched me and calmed me in that way that quiet spaces calm a person. There are quilts hanging from the ceilings in naturally lit, high alcoves made by the very people who attend the quilting groups who meet in the house. Everything is open and flowing in it's design and placement, geared towards comfort and ease of movement. Wooden desks with beautiful grain, blue-white light bouncing of the pale hallway walls. It's really a beautiful house.

All parts of the program are open to Ma Pop, never and I. I will surely be accompanying my mother to a few of the programs they run as well as looking into what never and I might want to do together, alone. We rarely have any time to ourselves, less so now that Ma Pop is not available to take the kid anymore. I can think of at least one other person I trust with taking Br0n for a few hours or even overnight, I just need to work up the nerve to ask him if he would mind doing that kind of thing once in a while on a barter basis. We need a break so badly, we are getting tense and short-tempered and I can't stand seeing that change in us.

Never and I are confused, finding ourselves dwelling more and more on the fact that our long term life goals concerning where we are going to live are very different from each other's. She, the country mouse and I, the city mouse. I want a small, clean apartment in the midst of downtown and close to various good foods and all the crazy, massed people I affirm my humanity within. I want a crawling sea of wild difference and rancorous odour, a hard place covered in grime of people. She wants a small clean place in the heart of a forest, away from noise and distraction, a place she can be spiritual and calm, tending to simple labours and desires. I don't know what to do, compromise seems like it wouldn't give either of us anything close to what we want, fullfilling one wish would leave the other unhappy and possibly resentful.

I am starting college in January. I'm very excited about going, having a complex schedule again, making a niche for myself within college society, using the university resourses for research (my campus is on Ryerson University grounds,) meeting new people to have coffee and lunch with, possibly even making a friend. I think once I get my laptop I'm going to get rid of my home office area in favour of a cleaner, more minimalized and streamlined apartment. I won't be able to study and work at home anyway, not with all the distractions. If I can find a counter or a table of the right dimensions I could extend the kitchen into the area where my office is now. I am thinking about taking massage classes part-time but will need to look at my finances for the coming September to see if I can afford an extra class or two. My wife and kid would love me while I'm in massage, having to need someone to practice on, I forsee fights over table time.

Oh, this is me:

:D