Janit Bianic
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Part 2: The Backdrop
This piece is about loss of ideals and anchoring back to Mother Earth for me. Hope it is for you as well and look forward to any comments.

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There is only one story per person. Deep pining requires silence and clean judgment. Requires time, set aside to render this miracle. There is only one story - told in so many voices. Nations of women weep in Afghanistan and Russia, always for the truth at the heart of the flame. Until the present story can not, will not, go any further into itself – and she begins to trust life. Trust that her life requires that she joins in. Can you sense the raising vibrations in your energy? Do you feel the passions once again? There is only one story told in a billion ways, for moments at a time, split images, and mega-seconds. Computers divide time so even the untrained eye can perceive information – underwritten. Placed before the trained mind a computer programmer can be sniffed out in a crowded room - softly, deeply, weeping to be seen and rewarded with doggy biscuits falling from the sky for no obvious reason. Falling tenderly inside the bowl where she eats and caresses her self. 

The writer is slowing down inside to remark upon her journeys into the libraries filled with chapters and aisles of reading, communities already warped by the ads seen everyday by the masses. The likes of Walmart begetting more and more parking lots for recreational vehicles - owners now questioning whether they can afford to fill the tank at the price of gas these days. Campsites are out of control. How will she decide to go inside to light up her march into spring? Baby, it’s cold outside.

She longs for her ancestor's words at the dinner table. Sees them peering over her shoulders as plates of steaming mashed potatoes covered in chicken gravy catch her nostrils. She muses. Oddly forming pages whittled. Deeply moved by the quiet hearth inside. Mother Earth is in her core, her essence, her very be-ing emerges.             

Splash . You're a woman once again - bred by bread alone. Baked to a perfect brown.  The woodstove pulls her to warm her muscles and backside. Glowing with the reflection of the rising February sun, she returns to unearth her truth so slowly, as cautiously as time flows out the kitchen window and crickets jump and plop, dragon flies click and silhouette themselves across the overgrown grasses of the summer. Walks past a school yard fence in her mind and stretches her hips, straining under the newness and freshness  - like finding a new toy.

She is of the earth, knows this is so - so deeply that no one can remove her from the rocking chair on her porch. She drags her pen, uncovers her darkest thoughts. Words keep her buried away from the secrets locked inside the rocking chair she inherited from Helen - the Seed Goddess and keeper of the maps of the world. The mention of her friend cheers her to remember. I'm the Green Goddess - keeper of the dreams and schemes. Androgynous - neither male nor female. In a woman's body this lifetime. What we gotta do to carry on the family name…

A voice from the darkness asks, do nurses and doctors know one is dead before they die? You can, you know. She knows. The choice was already made, long enough ago to witness her brother's death one hour after his soul left his body. Right in front of her. Al shared a family secret with his sister. Both passed on, let go at age 64. He was a year less 2 days - younger than his sister who never made it to receive her old age pension cheque either. He didn’t go to the memorial, couldn't go. Worked at the store instead. Seven days a week. A life sentence for most but for them just 20 more months. 

Remembers she doesn’t have to take on his pain. There’s honor in buying things and acquiring possessions. The dying have their own way of expressing life's ups and downs. What truth lies inside his chemo-filled body? The rage at his 26 year old son for dying first? Died of AIDS after meeting a nice older man. Eddy doesn't live his life the right way either. She knows each story differs, always. Knows her honesty would shock him.

Meanwhile his wife flips through magazines, doesn't want to see they won't be making that trip to Hawaii. Wishes she had paid more attention to training staff at her western wear store so she could have lived a little. Wishes and hopes that she could turn back time. Hear the applause when she sang “Blue Rose” one more time.

That will not be. Mother Earth has claimed yet another dreamer. His sister's body lies in a Grecian urn on 127 Street near where she lived for 30 odd years trapped inside  her body. Staring out the summer window, the bed positioned the same way inside that house - same place. Like a robot she formed her body into the curves and folds of the bedsprings waiting for morning to come and God to find her. Whenever she sat, she wrapped her legs around themselves twice, as if that could keep her core from falling out the bottom. She died. Heart attack - just fell after putting her groceries on winters' counter. The packaging was generic blue, not name brands like Campbell's Soup. Just an ordinary welfare life. Taking a cab from her agoraphobia to get her Matinee cigarettes and black tea bags. Died with five tea bags in the canister - one for each of her sons. She lived. She died.

After Clarence left her for a child barely older than their eldest son, she made few friends her own age. Covered her windows so life could not see through her. Whenever she got the least bit excited and loud she’d place her finger over her lips to remind herself she needed quiet. "Shhh, the neighbors will hear you. " Could almost see her making the sign of a T, and saying, “Time out. Sugar makes you talk too much!” Never said too loud. She might be judged guilty by association. Who were those visitors, anyway? 

My Momma, your momma’s momma kept her voice down in the lamplight.  Old death trappings from her mother's voicelessness.

So what was all that scurrying to get out of Vancouver about? Running away to find herself? Found a community of aging folks set in their ways. And routine while she repainted the walls of her own mind. Taking the blinded leap into the valley seemed easy from the apartment window. One full year in the Comox Valley. What surrounded her was her reality. She had mumbled her way to this point in her life like a shy lover. Harassing herself for every wrong hello. It was time to go forward now.

Accept her head would be cold and lonely at times and get on with the business of growing up. Put on a hat. Let go of the need to list more and more reasons to be annoyed. Wants to free herself from her soggy words. Yeah, like she wants to light up another joint and get fried. She wants to control the outcome of her story.  Make up another story, just  like Harv said, after her words froze in the Foothills of Alberta. Seemed so overwhelming at the time. 

Naming her bliss seemed so annoying to sit still inside the hundred year old farmhouse anxiously waiting to remove her plastic storm windows. The sea was calling her back. 

Janit Bianic Enthusiast 
Action Coaching (250) 331-3335

BIO:

Janit Bianic has spent the last 15 years learning about how to make change happen. She has learned experientially, struggling to make her own dreams come true; academically, being trained in issues around self-esteem and instructing adults with content related to transition and mobilizing community spirit. And practically, through jobs ranging from corporate management to freelance workshop facilitation. 

ANOTHER BIO:

Janit Bianic was born in Alberta in 1949 and grew up with 5 brothers and 4 sisters - 6 of whom were 6 years apart. "We were called the second batch by my mother", who passed away in 1974. From 1990 to 2000, she lived in Vancouver. Most recently she moved to Vancouver Island. The "Eye of the Potato" was originally written for a 3-day writing workshop.   

to Part 3