Revelations usually descend with noted heaviness. They emerge from crevices and corners after hours of thought, contemplation, and consideration.

And then?

Then we wait.

We were at the Ontario Science Centre with his little brother. To my right, I saw an interactive display called "Would you lie to me?" A young teenage couple were playing the game, the female asking her significant other questions from a script attached to the exhibit.

I motioned to my boyfriend to come and try the experiment with me. Once we were seated, I took my place on the side with the controls and the questions. Asking him to look straight ahead, I began asking the questions from the script.

"How would you describe what I look like?"

His eyes shifted to the right, then down. He bit his lip, let out an awkward laugh and said, "Uh, I'm not answering that question."
"Why not?" I inquired.
"I'm just not answering that right now."
"Okay..." I said, hesitating. I wondered what could possibly prevent him from describing his disheveled, non-makeup-wearing girlfriend. My self-esteem sank.
"Have you ever cheated on a test?"
He looked to the right and then said, "Yes."
"Have you ever lied to a boyfriend or girlfriend?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, looking at me directly.
"If you found a wallet with $500 in it, would you return it with the money in it?"
"No," he said.

We played back the tape and I looked carefully for all the signs of lying: shifting eyes, failure to make eye contact, fidgeting, biting lips.

"You lied!" I cried out.
"No, I didn't!" he said.
"You had shifty eyes! See?" and we watched the tape and we laughed. But I couldn't shake the feeling that his first answer had given me. Full of self-doubt and sadness, I walked away from the exhibit.

Later, we spoke quietly while his brother was distracted.
"Why wouldn't you describe me?" I asked.
"Because I wasn't comfortable in that situation," he replied.
"It would have been too difficult to say, 'I think you look nice.'?"
"I don't understand why you're mad at me for not answering a question."
"Because... there was obviously a reason."

Periods of silence and non-communication infiltrated the rest of the afternoon.

Hours later, on the long drive home, he said, "Ask me again."
"Ask you what?"
"What you asked me earlier."
"I don't know what that is."

I thought about it and then I said, "How would you describe my looks?"
"Was it your looks or just describing you?"
"Whichever you prefer."
"You have a beautiful mass of curls."
I waited.
"Your beautiful brown eyes."
"Your adventurous personality."
I looked at him in silence. The words sounded so fabricated, so rehearsed. The words rang of obligation as though they were supposed to be spoken to fix something that was broken.

It wasn't until the next morning, when I was lying on top of him, my dark, wet curls dangling above his face and our lips meeting again and again and again that he bore true witness. Cupping my face in his hands, he kissed me and whispered, "God, you're beautiful." And I knew he meant it.

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This is my submission for therealljidol Season 6, Topic 5: Bearing False Witness. I hope you will consider voting for me in this week's poll.

Like the greens to the auburns,
like the days to the weeks,
like the autumn to the winter,
our lives are melting
our lives are melding.

"I miss you, babe."
"Miss you too, babe. Hey babe? Can we make those cupcakes tonight, babe? Babe?"
"You bet, babe. Anything else you want to do tonight, babe?"
"I don't know, babe. Anything you wanna do, babe?"

Last night, we lay on a gray mattress, tangled in sheets and a dotted comforter and countless pillows.  He wrapped both arms around me and I pressed my head backwards, into his chest.
"Do you like me?" I asked sleepily.
"Someday I'm going to say no," he said quietly.  "...someday.  But yes, I like you."
I closed my eyes and felt our breathing co-ordinate in&out, in&out.
"Someday I'm going to say no..." he murmured again and we fell asleep together.

Then looking upwards,
I strain my eyes and try
To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites
From the passenger seat as you are driving me home.

"Do they collide?"
I ask and you smile.
With my feet on the dash
The world doesn't matter.

Crooked.  Yellowing.  Hard.  These three adjectives describe my mom's teeth.  My mom has brushed her teeth twice a day for as long as I can remember, but whitening toothpaste and Listerine have done nothing to offset the terrible effects of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.  Her parents were never able to give her braces as a child, so the teeth that lean towards the center of her smile will remain forever locked in place.  The darkened gums and yellowed teeth are her own doing.

For more than thirty years, my mother has been an intense smoker (Benson & Hedges Light 100s -- the silver package) and no amount of chewing gum or nicotine patches at Christmas or on her birthday has ever been able to deter her.

When I was a teenager, my mom saved up and bought braces for both my brother and I.  Now proud owners of gleaming smiles of straight teeth, we are thankful for her permanent gift.  My teeth are easier to clean and people often compliment our smiles. 

Once, when we were out in public, my usually quiet mother was becoming very animated and excited while she spoke.  I couldn't help but notice her teeth seemed more crooked and yellow than ever.  I wondered idly if there was even enamel left on most of her teeth.  She didn't notice my stare and continued talking.  I wondered if other people noticed her imperfect teeth and if they ever examined them as much as I was.  Fully engaged by her moving lips and glimpses of her teeth, I stopped listening to what she was saying.

When I finally stopped looking at her teeth and glanced up to meet her eyes, I started actively listening again.

"I'm just so proud of you and how far you've come," she was saying.  "You've really done so much with your life in such a short period of time.  I think you're developing into a beautiful young lady and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise."

"Thanks, Mom," I heard myself say.  She paused to look over and let our eyes meet.  And that's when I saw her again.

This was the woman who baked me treats before I came home from summer camp.  This was the woman who went camping with me.  This was the woman who bought clothes at the thrift store so that she could buy department store clothes for my brother and I.  This is the woman who raised my younger, autistic brother.  This is the woman who stayed awake until 6 am so she would be able to pick me up after prom, no matter how late I stayed out.  This is the woman who gave up going on vacations so that she could pay for me to take dance classes, enroll in Girl Guides, play soccer and baseball, join the youth bowling league, take piano lessons, try competitively swimming on a team...  this was Mom, my mom, the mom who didn't care about her teeth as long as our smiles would shine.

"Thanks, Mom," I said again and reached both my arms around her to pull her close.  Into her shoulder, I smiled and smiled again.  Thanks, Mom.

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This is my submission for therealljidol Season 6, Topic 3: Smile. I hope you will consider voting for me in this week's poll. 

What happens if the way that he feels about me and the way that I feel about him isn't the same at all?

"It's the fact that he always says, 'We'll address that later.' and 'Let's discuss it at the next meeting.' that drives me crazy.  Why can't he just grow some balls and make a goddamned decision?  Yvette and I have been bringing this up to him at the weekly meeting for months now!  Why can't he just be a director for once and say, 'You know what?  We're doing it today.  We are implementing it right now.'  Why can't he ever do that?  The real reason that our department is so inefficient is because the people in power don't just man up and make decisions.  If they would just make a decision, we could actually get things done!" I exclaimed to Trevor, letting the chopsticks fall out of my hand and clatter onto the table.

Ilija looked up from his bowl of soup, surprised.  "Are you talking about Jim?"

"Yes," I said, pushing hair out of my eyes, exasperated.

"I think he's a nice guy," Ilija said, open-faced and wide-eyed.

I looked over at Trevor.

"Yes, Ilija.  He can be a nice guy," Trevor responded tactfully.

"There are some things, Ilija, that go on in the office that you may not always see because of your position, but they are not always good things," I said quietly.

For the rest of the afternoon, I felt a mixture of guilt and perplexion as I contrasted myself to Ilija.  Virtually the same age and working in the same office, Ilija and I have some things in common, although those 'some things' are neither salary nor responsibility nor experience.  As we walked back to the office, I thought, "Is it better to be so naive that you are completely oblivous to the things that go on around you?  To think that your co-workers and managers and commissioners are nice people because they say "Good morning" and smile at you?  Or is it better to be aware, drunkenly, stupidly, entirely aware of all that goes on, office politics, scandals, poor decision-makers and the rest of it?"

...aware, I think.  I still think aware.

The theme of this week's topic is one that echoes of struggle, of hardship, of trials of endurance. 

"Uphill, both ways, barefoot."  It's the way most people imagine their grandparents had to get to school.  This is the reference that our elders use to describe their hardships to the younger generation.  But the hardships that my father's mother endured, I will never know.

On the day that I was born, my mother's mother and my father's farther were already dead.  My mother's mother died of a heart attack when my mom was 21 years old.  My father's father died of a wound in his stomach when my father was in his late 20s.  The only difference is that my grandmother died in southern Ontario and my grandfather, or abuelito, died in Arequipa, Peru.

My entire life, I have had an abuelita in Peru whose language I do not speak.  When I was four, my parents enrolled me in Spanish school.  Every Saturday, they would drag me kicking and screaming to an elementary school classroom where I would repeat: rojo, naranja, amarillo, blanco.  Every Saturday, I remember counting with children of various ages: uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco.  I hated it.  I hated it and I wanted to go home.  I had only met my abuelita two times in my life and she was about as relevant as a Christmas present in the mail once a year.

As I grew older, my parents gave up trying to force me to learn Spanish.  My dad was constantly perfecting his second language, English, and he even took on the challenge of learning three additional languages: Italian, French and German.  As a last-ditch effort, he insisted that my brother and I say, "Hola Abuelita!" every Sunday during his phone conversation with his mother, so she could at least hear our voices and a phrase she understood.

By the time I was in my mid-teens, my abuelita was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis.  She was living off the pension that the Peruvian government gave her every month because her late husband had been a judge.  When we went to see her in 1999, she was a frail, balding woman with her arms wrapped around herself.  She would walk around her casa muttering, "Que frio. Que frio!"  And she would smile when her eyes fell upon my brother and I, her only grandchildren.  Unruly adolescents in a third-world country, my brother and I often counted down the days until our departure.  We eagerly awaited the day we could fly back to Canada to see our friends, play with our toys, find comfort in our home.  Nights in Peru were cold and the days felt long since we had no one to talk to and nothing to play with.

As my abuelita's situation deteriorated, we visited her more and more often.  By late 2001, we were visiting Peru annually  regardless of the expense.  In 2005, I realized how privileged I was to visit a country with vast deserts, the Amazon jungle, and a long, long coastline.  I began taking pictures of peasants in tattered rags and abandoned shacks made of sticks and cardboard.  My heart began to go out to these people who, I was quickly realizing, were my people.

My interest in my family's heritage increased and I began doing more travelling and exploring.  We flew in a small plane over the Nazca lines; we saw museums on the Incas; we visited the deepest canyon within driving distance in Colca.  I was suddenly hungry for information about my people.  The weeks we spent in Peru flew by faster than ever as I planned one adventure after another without my abuelita, but back at home, every Sunday, "Hola Abuelita!", our five-second conversation with her remained constant.

In March 2008, I was back at campus in Ontario.  I attended an appreciation dinner for students who volunteered in the community.  There, I met a beautiful and inspiring woman who worked in the Registrar's office.  She told me about her family and I told her about mine.  She asked what I was doing after graduation and I told her I had contemplated taking six months off and moving to Peru to spend time with my ailing abuelita. 

"Can you imagine how many stories she must have?!" the woman asked me excitedly.  "If she's in her early 80s now, can you imagine what she went through in the '30s and '40s in a third-world country?  She must have so many interesting ideas and stories to share!  She must know so much of your family's history!"  As she went on with increasing excitement, I began to get excited, too. 

"Maybe I will go," I told her.  "Maybe I will!"

The following December, I graduated from my program at university.  We went to Peru to visit my abuelita and tia, but I was less interested in learning about Peru and more interested in my future.  Back at home, my dad brought up my idea of moving to Peru, but I was dismissive.  "Dad, Peru is boring.  I don't speak the language.  There is nothing to do.  Grandma doesn't need me, anyway, and I should be looking for a job in my field."

On September 3, 2009, the day before my abuelita's birthday, my dad received a phone call from my tia who told him that my abuelita had passed away.  I was on my way to visit my parents that night and, when I arrived, my mom told me what had happened.  I suddenly broke in a way that I've never broken before.  My entire body shook and I remember saying, "No...  no!" before burying my scream and my tears into my mother's shoulder.  My dad was on a plane to Peru the next day and I bought my tickets for the following Monday.  I spent six days in Peru, quiet and numb, being put on display for people who knew my abuelita to meet her granddaughter from Canada.  I spent my twenty-third birthday in Peru.  I spent cold nights and dry, endless days in Peru.

On the day of her memorial service, I sat quietly through a Spanish Catholic Mass and received a meaningless Communion in front of hundreds of people.  When it was over, my aunt brought me to the rear of the church and told me to stand there.  And then began the formation of a line hundreds of people long who walked up to my two aunts, myself and my brother and offered their condolences.  The women kissed both of my cheeks and pressed my head to their bosoms.  The men held me close and whispered their apologies for my loss.  One woman, evidently stricken with poverty, held me and wailed for my abuelita's soul.  Almost all of them had tears in their eyes and when they held me, they told me I was a beautiful granddaughter; they told me my abuelita would be forever missed, they told me she was an incredible human being; they told me I was precious; they offered sincere sympathy; they even told me things in Spanish that I will never be able to translate, but that I know were deep and beautiful.

Some people were fortunate to have grandmothers who told them about days when they walked uphill, both ways, barefoot.  My abuelita never told me about los dias de cuesta arriba, ambos caminos, con los pies descalzos.  She never will.  Even if she wanted to, I never gave her the opportunity to.  I didn't listen.  But her constant "Te amo, Rosita"s are mine.  And the rich and vibrant history of Peruvian people is what I have left of her now.

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This is my submission for therealljidol Season 6, Topic 2: Uphill, both ways, barefoot. I hope you will consider voting for me in this week's poll. 

We went to Canada's Wonderland Hallowe'en Haunt on Saturday night with twenty friends.  We ran through the mazes (I gripped his coat).  He looked down and kissed me and his friends laughed and said, "Get a room!"  He bought me cotton candy and held my hand.

It was one of the most memorable nights I've had in a long time.  On Sunday, we went out for breakfast with a group of friends and then cuddled up for The Office and Sunday cleaning.

The weekends fly by so quickly and the weeks go just as fast.

It's getting closer.  I knew it on Saturday and I know it now.  We were lying on his bed, in cuddles, and he was holding me close and looking down at me.  I saw the affection and attachment in his gaze.  He decided to start playing the hypothetical game.
"When is it right to tell someone you love them?"
"When you feel it, I guess."
"What if you loved them the first day you met them and then every day you loved them twice as much, would you tell them?"
"I wouldn't tell them on the first day.  But I would tell them if I continued to feel it and we got to a point where I didn't think they would be scared by me telling them that."
"So you would wait until you had so much love inside of you for them that it was about to burst and you absolutely couldn't hold it in any longer and it just had to come out?"
"Yes, I suppose so.  When the time was right."
"Hmmm."

He thought over my answers, then continued on.

"Hypothetically speaking, what would you say if I asked you to marry me?"
"Purely hypothetically speaking?"
"Yes.  ...hypothetically."
"Hypothetically, if you asked, I would say, 'I need to think about it.'"
"Hmm.  Okay."
"Hypothetically, how would you propose?"
"Hypothetically... I would hold you in my arms and look down at you and say, Rosa, I love you more today than I loved you yesterday.  I love you more than I've ever loved anyone in my entire life.  You are completely unlike anybody I've ever met and I don't think I will ever be able to stop loving you.  I have so much love for you I can't stand it.  Rosa, will you spend the rest of your life with me?"
"Wow," I said, trying to disguise the tear-like things that were approaching my eyes.
"And, hypothetically, what would you say?"
"That was beautiful.  But I would still say, 'I need to think about it.'"
"Mm.  Okay."

And later, on Sunday night in his kitchen, he pulled me close to him and said, "God, I love you, Rosa." and before I could answer, he said, "...hypothetically."  He saw my smile and smiled back.
"You're going to drop so many goddamned hints that by the time you say it, I won't even be surprised, you know.  By the time you say it in four months, I'll have heard you say it hypothetically a hundred times."
"Then maybe I just won't say it.  It's not a big deal."
And he smirked and I shook my head and tried to remember the last time I met anybody quite like him.
 

I have probably just had one of the most relaxing and peaceful weekends imaginable.  We woke up and made apple cinnamon pancakes together from scratch.  We watched episode after episode of The Office.  We had bubble baths and naps. We held each other close and whispered in bed.

On Sunday afternoon, after an intense naked wrestling match on his bed (The Giant versus Lady Vixen -- names I invented, thank you very much), we lay there tangled in sheets, laughing and catching our breath.

"Hey," he said, putting a hand under my chin and turning it towards him.  "There's something I want to tell you."
"Oh, is there?" I asked.
"I'm serious," he said.
"How serious?" I asked.
"Very serious."
"On a scale of 1 to 10?"
"10.7."
"Okay," I said.
"I don't know if I should tell you this."
I waited.
"I don't know if now is the right time."
His eyes kept searching my face, looking for something.
I smiled up at him.
"...Never mind, I'm not going to tell you right now.  Maybe another time."
"Okay," I said and settled back into his arms.

He tells me all the time he worries that he's fallen for me so much harder than I've fallen for him.  He tells me he worries about losing me.  Sometimes I lie on top of him, looking down into his face and he brushes the hair out of my face and says, "How was I ever lucky enough to find you?  How can you be so perfect?"

Even if he hasn't said it because he hasn't found the right moment, I know that he loves me.  He loves going to the club with me and all of his friends.  He loves our Baking Sundays (we create something in the kitchen every Sunday!).  He loves how we wake up together in the morning and pack our lunches before work.  He loves that I'm taking his nine-year-old brother to the Science Centre in a few weeks.  He loves that I volunteer with Kim and with ROOF.  He loves that sometimes when he visits me, he finds me working on paintings.  He loves the books I've lent him from my personal library ("Thank you for re-introducing me to reading this summer," he said last night).  He loves the meals we make together.  He loves the adventures that I take him on.  He loves me and I know it every time he looks at me.

I believe in small acts of kindness and I believe that being kind is more important than being right.  One of my favourite acts of kindness is to go to a drive-through and order something and when I drive up to pay, I ask the cashier to also pay for the order of the person behind me.

This morning, I decided to do this at a Tim Horton's.  I drove towards the drive-through and saw that two lines were merging into the drive-through lane.  I waited while a car turned in ahead of me and then another.  As a believer that two lines of traffic should merge in an alternating pattern, I watched three cars in a row from the other line slide into the drive-through lane before me.  Each time, I smiled patiently and thought, "You would have had a free coffee this morning if you had let me in in front of you."

When I was let into the line, I looked behind me to see who the recipient would be today.  It was a woman with expensive sunglasses driving a shiny Infiniti and she looked like she was in a rush.  For a moment, my heart sank as I thought about the other old and rusty cars in the line whose drivers might need the free coffee more than this woman and then I stopped myself.

Maybe by buying this woman's coffee today, she'll put two dollars into the United Way campaign at work today.  Maybe she won't cut someone off on the highway and cause an accident.  Maybe she'll smile and be that much nicer to her administrative assistant today.  However it ultimately affects her, I can only do my part.

So when I drove up to pay for my tea, I said, "Can you please charge me for the woman behind me's order, too?" and I smiled, knowing that there were a million potential spin-offs from this simple act.

This morning, we awoke from our slumber just after 5 am and struggled to put clothes on.  My partner and I drove in sleepy silence to our destination.  There, we prepared our mats, towels and toes and entered the room of heat.

Ninety minutes of hot yoga later, we lay on our mats in still, ethereal silence.  My eyes were closed, my muscles relaxed, a line of sweat trickling down my face and then I felt three fingers touch the fingers on my left hand and lightly squeeze.

Last night, I told him there was a password he had to guess before he could touch me.  "It starts with a 'p' and ends with a 'p'," I said.  "It's what we have.  It's what we are."
"Partnership," he said and we smiled.

What would I say to someone who stumbled across my journal today?

I would say that I am an imperfect, incomplete 23-year-old figuring out who she wants to be. I guess that's where most 23-year-olds are, except that my life has been a little bit different from everyone else's because of my individual deviations.

I'm an urban planner. I love what I do. I think if you do what you love and love what you do, you're probably on the right path. I graduated from university in December 2008. I began working full-time in March 2009. The transition from seven courses a semester, campus rec leagues, sleeping in six days a week and lots of homework to an eight-to-four regimented work week has paved the way for a lot of personal changes.

I live on my own in a beautiful brownstone building downtown. I do a lot of volunteer work in my community. I'm planning to go to the States for my Master's degree (Harvard or MIT, if I can get in). I've been dating boys (but none too seriously) over the last year and a half since I broke up with the boy I called the love of my life. Boys often tell me I'll make a fantastic mother (and it's true, I'm good with kids), but I have no intention of getting married any time soon.

I'm committed to honesty, integrity, creativity, and passion. I'm probably one of the most passionate people you'll ever meet, but you'll probably never meet me.

As a journaler of seven years and counting, I tend to write about moments and memories, things that move me, things that I want to capture. As a reader, I tend to read about things that inspire me, fascinate me, engage me.

I'm Rosa, World. Hola.


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This is my submission for therealljidol Season 6, Topic 0: Introduction. I hope you will consider voting for me in this week's poll.

Last night when I got home from ROOF, he asked me to open the door to my apartment.  I opened the door and saw that he had spent the night cleaning my apartment for me.  The hardwood floors were so shiny they looked polished, all of the dishes were washed, clothes were in another room, and everything was tidy and fresh.

I spun around and gave him a huge hug. 

After we undressed and crawled into bed, he asked me if I wanted a bubble bath.  I whispered yes.  He said, "I was planning to have one waiting for you, but I didn't know how long you'd be at ROOF and I didn't want it to be cold." 

Giggling, we crept into my bathroom.  I asked him which bath bar he wanted me to use; "The pink one," he said.  He watched me break off chunks of the pink and white bar and crumble it into fast-running water pouring into the tub.  When the water was fuscia and the bubbles were reaching the top, we climbed in and turned on the jacuzzi jets.  Streams of water surged into the tub, creating more bubbles and massaging our skin. 

I fit my body into his lap and leaned back.  I looked up at his face, at his upside-down eyes and his upside-down smile and I wondered how this man had found me.  He pushed me forward and began massaging my back, finding the tightest spots and rubbing the knots out.  I felt the tension flow out of my body.  I was completely relaxed. 

We climbed out together and returned to my bedroom.  He jumped onto the bed first and then reached up and pulled me down to him.  I lost myself in his warm kisses.

We laugh.  We laugh a lot.

This morning on our drive to work, we laughed so hard we were crying.

When I make up songs, he laughs.  When I look up at him with my big brown eyes and say something ridiculous, he laughs.  When he tickles me, I laugh.  When we wrestle, we laugh.  When we playfight, we laugh.

Laughter echoes throughout my apartment all the time and the sound of our constant happiness reassures me that this is right, so right.

Even when I try to write poetry and convince myself that it isn't shit, the bottom line is that it's still shit.  I can't slide words together the way I used to.  Or maybe I was never that good at it in the first place.