My Mind As A Spiderweb: A Poem

My mind:a spiderweb 
Of a fragile essence -
Woven together, strong 

It hangs open to all
Who wish to gaze at its 
Evidence of process 

But in just one moment 
One tiny child's finger 
And misty strength is lost 

Anxious, distraught, this mind 
The spider's home is naught 
But just thread on the ground 

Again I build and spin 
Until someone comes by 
And simply sees beauty 

Weak enough to crumble
Strong enough to retry
A thousand threads and webs

On and on and on - and

Symbolism: Poetic Prose

I once saw a sky that was full of stars, just like this one is. However, everything between the stars was different. It was still black, but it somehow seemed more solid. It was capable of covering up the stars and almost choking out their flames. 

I once saw a rose bush where none of the flowers were connected to the stems. They would appear in the air above, float there for a moment, like a very calm humming bird and then shrivel and die because no nutrients could get to them.

I once met a person who seemed to live without language.  I kept thinking I must just not be using the right words. I tried everything I could think of, I even used American Sign Language and a variety of written languages, but I could not get any sort of response. I will never know if they understood anything I ever said.

I once climbed to the top of a very tall mountain and met a person who had lived there for  so long that they had forgotten where they had originally come from. All they could remember is that one day they had reached the top, seen the glory, and decided to never leave again. What else even mattered? "Don't you have a family?" I yelled, but they didn't answer. 

Spiderweb: Poetic Prose

I am walking just before dusk. My shoes tap over a worn wooden bridge which glows almost orange in the not yet setting sun. Sunshine seems to be everywhere right now. It makes the red buildings glow, it bursts out from between the trees, and it sparkles like diamonds on the river. It seems like too much glory for the earth to contain. Maybe this is why it is about to leave us for the night. It strikes me as strange that this earth gets brighter before it gets darker.

Something is glistening. Even in all this shine it manages to catch my eye: a simple spider web. It shines in the sun as an intricate design woven tough and strong by a tiny insect. I am reminded of something I heard once about the strength created by the web’s pattern of design. It is hard to believe when considering the thinness of each strand, or the fact that, with one hand, I could destroy the whole thing and its master too. Is it strong or weak, this spider web? In these thoughts I am reminded of myself and I keep walking.

The Multiplicity of Voices: Poetic Prose

So I'm standing in a room right, and this person comes up to me and says "You are a woman, act like it." So I cock my head a little to the side and look at them confused while they say some other stuff. They talk quick. I don't understand them. They walk away. I'm still standing there. Someone else comes running up and starts talking about how mad they are at so and so and I'm pretty sure they are talking about that first person, the one who told me to be a woman and what that should look like. "Who cares!" yells this second person. "Be whatever you want to be, in fact it is your duty as a woman to not be the type of woman they want you to be so that you can show them that you can be whoever you want to be." This person's is angry, whoa! I like the way they get so into it. I like their passion, but holy elephants I have no idea what they are talking about. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure they just told me that I should be who they want me to be and not who this other person wants me to be because no one should tell me who to be. I'm not sure if that makes sense.

So I'm standing there with all this stuff in my mind trying to figure it out and ANOTHER person comes on up and yells at me for standing around. "Do something! Take action!" and poof they're gone. Do something? Right, OK, but what? WHAT?

So I'm standing their looking at my feet when someone comes up and says "But what do you believe?" "Believe?" I say, "Believe about what?" And they rant at me for hours and hours, telling me what to think and believe about everything under the sun, but they are soon joined by someone else who thinks some other things and then the two of them yell at each other and I'm still standing there, confused and looking at my feet.

Well I suddenly realize my feet won't move if my brain doesn't tell them to, but my brain is so confused I don't know what to do. So I do the only thing I still can do and I sit down. So I'm sitting on the ground and I start to cry because it's the only response I can muster. The tears are flowing when someone rushes up and tells me to stop complaining so I bight my lip and I bight my lip and I bight my lip and I bight my lip, but the tears finally come again and someone else comes and yells at me for not reaching out and getting help. "I'm here for you!" they say and then run away again. Now I have this vague notion that I'm supposed to talk about my problems, so the next time someone rushes over I open my mouth and I talk and I talk and they say "Stop talking and listen!" and someone else says "You think too much!" and another person says "Get up, get up!" And I am so tired of the voices and the yelling so I roll behind a tree and hide.

I close my eyes and plug my ears, but the screaming has somehow gotten inside and I can still hear it, because now I am yelling at myself in all of their voices and there is no escape from the multiplicity of voices, because there is no escape from myself.

Sunshine In My Bones: A Poem

Something rings deep inside

When these words touch my eyes

Like sunshine in my bones

Just what I’ve been wanting

There’s a yearning

I’ve been searching

This viewing is a finding

I’m coming home

All the children of the earth

Search for home with loving arms

Just for somewhere to grow

As water fills our souls

Wilderness: A Poem

I’ve wandered in this wilderness for far too long

But I keep on hearing this one great song

It draws me onward

Though I stumble and slip

It draws me upward

Though this darkness is thick

It is the song of a million witnesses

Of the most unimaginable beauty

And I too want to see the magnificence

Though something always seems to stop me

So mine is a small voice crying in the darkness

Give me water so I won't thirst,
Bread that I shall never hunger,
Light so I'll never stumble

But really all I long for is a glimpse of that one face

And a true encounter with the glorious beauty of grace

Perspective: A Poem

We are but specs of dust
And perspective is to know
I am not alone and you
Are no bigger or smaller

I am neither lesser nor better
For we are but two specs
Like stars in the sky
Bright pinpoints in darkest night

But in my heart it's larger
A star is a great fire
And so are both you and I
Though we are but specs

Longings: A Poem

I want to grow roots
Like an old oak tree
Tall but very deep

I've wandered too long
And I've grown too weak
While searching and longing

Give me water so I won't thirst,
Bread that I shall never hunger,
Light so I'll never stumble

Joy in my roots,
Something deeper,
And a place like home

Freedom: A Poem

You fly like ancient mythology
For you must avoid the sun
But you call it pleasure

You name yourself freedom
Choosing a slow death,
You choke you're own breath

You know not what you do
When true freedom calls to you
To fly higher than you can know

I see you like a child
Trapped in human mistakes
While I dream of another day

For I know you will dance again

My Dad, A Tree: A Poem (Warning: Swear Word)

And just to shake things up a bit
This one's not about the tree now is it?
This one's for my Dad.
You know he sometimes made me oh so mad,
Yet he was like my own personal pine tree
Staying strong and safe
And  pointing up consistently
Like a tree he was there for me from start to fin
And he always listened when I would talk
But like a tree, when there was something I could learn from him
Well that's when I'd up and go take a walk
And my biggest regret now that he's gone
Is that we never really talked one on one
It's like these trees that we just ignore
Even though giving us OXYGEN is their daily chore
And it really kind of has to stop me
I mean, If I ignored my dad, and I ignore this tree
Who else am I forgetting to listen to?
And how much more shit could this get me into?

Hello London: A Poem

Moving to a new city

So many people have done this before

This isn’t even my first time

Yet still it isn’t easy

There are a thousand things which could move us on

But to live someplace new is to leave an old place behind

I was lucky enough to love my old home

But now I am an uprooted tree, wondering if I’ll be able to grow roots again

The thing is that

To say goodbye

Is to risk the possibility of no reunion

My heart is scattered, with pieces left in a million places

Yet I feel the value of connecting and belonging

Is not in how long it lasts

But in how beautiful it gets

Oh may it get beautiful again

So here I am starting over

Even if it means loving some place new just to lose it all later  

But to say hello,

Is to risk hatred and rejection

I am not easy to love

Are any of us really?

We all come with our own layers of fear and anger

But deep within us all is a heart ready to poor out love

And the pain we stumble into on our journeys
Is really nothing new for us humans,

Who overcome and again and again

Who roll out of bed even with a heavy head

And we put one foot in front of the other

A thousand scattered hearts looking to connect

We are never truly alone

And one way or another we’ll be ok

So Hello London, I am new here.

New to this city life

And new to buildings big enough

To make a human seem minuscule.

I am new here,

But I come with open arms

Ready for all you may give

And ready to live through more loss

Oh London

For better or for worse

Come what may, here am I

Will you take me as I am? 

Hands: A Poem

Do you ever feel like you are on your own?

Even in a room full of people do you feel alone?

Sometimes I feel so confined

To the world inside my mind

I’ve tried to bring with me all that I love

But it’s just a shadow of the real world above.

Then one day,

I found another way.

I came to this circle with my misunderstandings of struggles, identities, inside, outside

My brain full of questions like “did I belong or didn’t I?”

But I entered any way

And I got a real surprise that day.

It was a hand

Yep, just a hand,

No big deal, I’ve seen a lot of hands in my time,

But this one, this one was reaching for mine.

And what do you know? My hand responded with a mind of its own

There were two hands there, holding on across some fuzzy no man’s zone

Wow, we were truly together,

But we didn’t even know each other

There’s something about hands

Those reaching fingers like powerful connecting bands.

What Happens After the End of Monkey Beach (Warning: Swearing)

Surviving Alone: A Final Chapter for Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach

The sound of a speedboat gets closer and closer. I lay still for a long time, or I think it is a long time. I don’t know. At first...I feel like...I think I may float away, float back to...wherever I was. Jimmy! Things slowly become real again, too real. I sit up too fast and my head spins. Jimmy is shaking his head again. “Tell her, “Tell her,” “Tell her.” I reach out my hand, but he’s not there. I am remembering. I saw Jimmy! Where did I see Jimmy? Mick was there too. “You go out there and give ‘em hell. Red power!” But Ma-ma-oo wants grandkids. Where are they? I shake my head, slowly. It feels both full and empty. I do not understand, or am I trying to ignore the understanding I already have? Jimmy was with Ma-ma-oo and Mick, but Ma-ma-oo and Mick are dead.

“It’s a dream” I tell myself sternly. Ma-ma-oo had told me “Never trust the spirit world too much. They think different from the living.” What about Tab? I thought I saw her dead. I thought I saw her ghost, but she was alive. Jimmy is too. I pretend I am sure of it. I try to stand up, but cannot. I touch my right hand to my head which hurts a little. I look down and see the shallow cut on my left hand. That hurts too, but only faintly. I rub it absently and it bleeds again. I remember something. There was a thing. I have a vague memory that has to do with blood that makes me shudder. I press a leaf to the cut to staunch the flow. I remove the leaf and look at it. It is bloody but the cut is dry again. I look around me quickly. I am still remembering and afraid of that thing, but nothing happens. I pile dirt on the blood stained leaf until it is lost beneath a small mound of earth.

I finally manage to stand. My boat is gone, but I hear it. Or is that another boat? The noise is coming closer. I take a deep breath. I know where I am, but I don’t know where I was or do I have that backwards? I long for Mick, for Ma-ma-oo, for Jimmy. No, Jimmy is different. I close my eyes. Will they come to me? “When it’s your time to go, you go. Nothing you can do will change it. We’re where we belong, but you have to go back.” Go back? Where did I go back to and where was I before right now? I think I belong with Jimmy, but every moment seems to take me away from him. The boat get’s closer and someone waves. It is not an “oh it’s good to see you” sort of wave but a really frantic one. I wave too, by impulse, but my wave is more relaxed. I am still too confused to be frantic. Someone yells. I don’t know what they are saying, but then I do, they are yelling "Lisa." They know me and they want me, as if they knew that I belonged with them. It is Uncle Geordie.

“Lisa!” He yells as he comes closer. I think I can see the relief flowing off of his face. I feel weak, like something sapped away all of my energy. I don’t know why I feel so weak but I feel like I am going to fall. It is hard to stay standing. He jumps out of the boat pulling it up to safety. I walk towards him on shaky legs but then I start to sway. I fall, but he catches me and helps me into the boat. He wraps a blanket around me and hands me a thermos of warm tea. We sit in silence for a long time as we move away from Monkey Beach. I watch it disappear into the distance. I don’t know if I am sad to see it go, or maybe just relieved. For a moment I think I see Jimmy again. He is standing on the beach. He calls out to me, but his voice is lost to the wind and waves. I think of asking Geordie to stop and turn around, but I don’t. I suppose deep down I know that it isn’t really him, or at least, if it is Jimmy I know we cannot save him. I watch until he is a spec, but I am looking for the Aux’gwalas. There is something in the woods just out of sight. Or maybe they have already left, just as I am leaving.

We go on for a long time in silence and then Uncle Geordie asks “Do you know how worried we were?” He looks really mad, or maybe just frustrated, or is that fear I see on his face? Then his face softens and the next time he speaks his voice is really calm and quiet. “You know what, its fine. You’ll hear enough of it from the others, but Lisa, your parents...they called to say...to say they are coming back...and when they heard you weren’t in the house...Lisa you’re all they have now that...” He stops himself from saying something. He looks at me hard like he’s checking to see if I was listening, but then he looks away real quick. I was and I wasn’t. He clears his throat “no I...” For one moment I think he’s going to cry, but he doesn’t “I’m just glad you’re alright.” I’m tired. I fall asleep on the boat. It is not the most comfortable place to sleep but I do it and I don’t dream at all, thank goodness, or do I wish I could dream? I can’t decide.

I don’t remember anyone ever sitting me down and telling me outright that Jimmy has passed away. Maybe they did at some point and I just forgot about it. All I remember is that eventually I stopped denying it and so did everyone else. Josh has died too I guess, but again I have no memory of being told this. I don’t go to his funeral. I can’t because of what I have seen. Real or not real it burns in my mind’s eye, it makes me sick. I don’t tell anyone. I want to avoid their concern or more trips to a therapist; I’ve had enough of that. All I need is Ma-ma-oo’s advice. I just tell them I don’t feel well, they tell me I need closure and I say I will go to Jimmy’s funeral. I am so glad they decided to do two separate funerals. I go to bed for a nap and let them assume I was just grief stricken, when really it is anger I feel. I don’t know if I am angry at Josh or angry at Jimmy for taking it upon himself to kill the bastard. Maybe I am angry at both of them. No, I don’t want to be angry at Jimmy.

                All that afternoon I hear Jimmy’s voice in my head saying “Tell her” “Tell her” “Tell her.” I want to scream at him to tell her himself, but maybe Karaoke wouldn’t believe a ghost. I don’t know how to do it. I don’t really know if I will, but I know I should and I think about it a lot. When I go to Jimmy’s funeral I see her out of the corner of my eye. It happens when I turn my face away so mom won’t see me cry. I turn away and there she is sitting way at the back. I think she must have forgiven him for leaving. I think she must have loved him. I don’t know how that makes me feel. “Tell her” “Tell her” “Tell her.” Jimmy says. “OK, OK, OK.” I think these words hard, directing my thoughts at his stupid ghost, or memory, or whatever it is. I just want him to shut up.

                I go over there one day and knock at the door. She answers but then shuts it when she sees that it’s me. I don’t know why she does this. What reason does she have to be mad at me? I’m just trying to help. "Bitch," I think, unnecessarily. Grief does stupid shit to people’s minds and I shouldn’t get mad at her, but it’s hard when your own brother is dead and you just want to cry, but you have to go solving everyone else’s shitty problems. I knock again. The door opens just a crack and I stick my foot in. “Lisa” she says “I...” Her voice is really hard and I have to swallow and focus on my words. I remember that she is a tough girl, beautiful, but tough. “Listen,” I say “there is something Jimmy told me before he left and I think you need to know.” I lie a little, so she won’t think I’m crazy, so she’ll listen to what I have to say. “I...” She wavers between telling me to fuck off and letting me in. “Let me in.” I say “Just for one cup of coffee.” “OK.” I come into a kitchen strewn with empty beer bottles and I realize she is swerving when she walks and slurring all her words.

                  “I know about Josh.” I say once we’ve sat down with coffee. It just comes out so fast and so blunt, this is not how I meant to do it. I should have written it down and just left her a letter. I wanted to do it right, but this is all wrong. Her hand goes really stiff and then white because she is gripping her mug so hard. “Get out” she says real quiet through tight lips. I don’t move “Get out, get out, get out.” She is shaking and her voice is rising. “Jimmy knew too” I say it so quiet I’m worried she didn’t hear me, she is still shaking with anger. “He knew and he loved you and...” She freezes now as I take it out of my pocket, the ring I finally found. I’m so afraid I’m doing this wrong, is this even what Jimmy meant? “He wanted you to have this” I say pushing it over to her. She starts shaking again as she reaches for the box and her eyes are flooding with tears. “Why would you tell me this!” she screams throwing the box across the table. “What the fuck does it matter now that he’s gone! Fuck you and get out of my house!” She is yelling so loud I can’t hear anything else. I’m shaking too when she reaches for the nearest empty. She’s going to throw it at my face. I have to do something.

         “He loved you and he wanted you to have this.” I say it again, loud but calm and steady. “He loved you and he wanted you to have this.” It’s like I’m casting a spell. “He never really left you, and even now he is just waiting to be with you once again. Go and do what you feel is best. Live your life until you can be together again. Jimmy’s dying gift to you was killing the bastard. It’s all done now.” “Josh?” She says, freezing again. “Dead bastard’s dead.” I say real quiet. “Jimmy...?” “Jimmy’s your knight in shining armor.” I say with some irony thinking of my brother, but I know it’s true when I say He loved you.” And that’s that, I don’t know if I did it right, but I know I leave still living. I wasn’t too afraid though. “When it’s your time to go, you go. Nothing you can do will change it. We’re where we belong.” I don’t care if I die now, I don’t really care what happens. I did what he asked; he can’t get mad at me now.

“You did what?” Tab asks. It is early October, more than a month has gone by. “I applied to university for next year.” I say again. “Well big whoop miss fancy pants.” “Tab don’t, I want to do this.” I stop for a minute than say real quiet “For Jimmy.” Tab swallows, nods, pauses. “What are you going to study?” She asks it quiet and her voice has changed, some of its usual toughness is missing. “I don’t know.” I say, “I’m going in undeclared but I might take English, or Zoology.” She raises an eyebrow but says nothing. I like English myself, at least it is not too hard, but I’m thinking of Jimmy and his crows. I don’t tell Tab that. I hear Jimmy’s voice: “I’m going to set up a research center to study them” “I’ve already decided, this is what I want to do. I have a new direction.” “I thought that was my whole life ending, but it’s just starting. Do you know how free I feel? I feel like everything’s just opened up. Everything. The sky’s the limit!” At the time I thought he was crazy, just denying how much it hurt to lose a dream. I don’t know, maybe that is what he was doing, and maybe that is what I am doing too, but I don’t care. It’s to honor Jimmy, I tell myself. I’m going to school to honor Jimmy.

In my last week of the following summer I visit Karaoke. We’ve been hanging out sometimes and I promise to write. I’m not even really doing it for Jimmy anymore. I used to think he just liked her because she was hot, but there are other things about her that have grown on me now. I even told her about ghosts and she didn’t laugh. I didn’t tell her about Jimmy yet, just Mick and Ma-ma-oo. I mentioned the little man and she reacted a little funny, but she didn’t call me crazy. I didn’t tell her about the thing, though. I say goodbye to Frank too, but I don’t promise to write to him, but who knows, I still might.

I go to the graveyard all by myself the day before I leave for university. “Hi Ma-ma-oo” I say. I feel uncomfortable, a little silly, yet – somehow – it feels right. I make a fire in silence and start to feed it the uh –unt that I brought with plenty of salt and soy sauce this time. “There is nothing fake in here Ma-ma-oo!” I say out loud. “It is just the good stuff. No sickness where you are right? No salt substitutes needed where you are.” I feel silly for a minute and I sit there in silence. “I’m going to school Ma-ma-oo” I say. “I think I am going to study animals, birds I think, or maybe I will study literature, the stories of this country, even the stories of our people.” I don’t expect a response. I know the dead are real. I know they can speak to me, but sometimes I still feel nervous when I speak to them. Suddenly I hear her as clear as if she were sitting beside me even though it is just a memory. “My crazy girl. Go home and make me some grandkids.” “Maybe someday” I tell her. Now, I am not at all ashamed to sit here speaking out loud to the dead. “Maybe I’ll meet a man at university. Or maybe I’ll come back once I’ve figured a few things out and fall in love with some guy here. Don’t give up on me yet ok? I just need to do this, for Jimmy and for Mom and Dad, and...” I pause a long time before I admit it real quiet “for me, I don’t really want to stay here and work forever at the cannery. I don’t really want to go back to Van and hop from one party to the next. Ma-ma-oo, I know you want grandkids, but this is my way out so that if they come I can give them a good life.”

Eventually I leave and I go home. This will be my last night in this bedroom before I leave for my new school. I look at the dresser where the little man used to come and then I close my eyes and I am asleep. That night I dream I am back there, on Monkey Beach, or wherever I was before Uncle Geordie found me. Everyone is there with me again: Ma-ma-oo, Ba-ba-oo, Mick, and Jimmy. “I told her” I say to Jimmy. He nods and I can tell he is glad, but he is going away, or am I going away? Everybody is happy. I hear more singing, it is in Haisla. “Thank you for the uh –unt.” Ma-ma-oo says, “More Soy next time.” “Don’t forget my Twinkies.” says Ba-ba-oo. “Hey little Monster,” says Mick “you’re going to school! Knock em dead! you’ll be fine, you got the red power.” “Why did you send me back?” I am yelling “Jimmy! Where is Jimmy” “Not your time, not your time. Not yet, you will know when.” Says my Ma-ma-oo. I wake in a cold sweat, but I am not afraid or sad or much of anything. What sticks with me most is the singing. I am soon asleep again and all I dream of is the wind in the trees carrying song to me and the smell of Ma-ma-oo’s cooking.

I still see them sometimes. All of them: Mick, Ma-ma-oo, Jimmy. The little man never does come back, but sometimes when I sleep I see my family. I see them when I am awake too, but only if I am alone and they never talk to me in the day. I know it is not my time yet. I know I need to be here, but it is hard some days, when all my papers are due and exams are looming and I picture Jimmy talking excitedly about his crows and think that I am failing him. There are days when the darkness is too much for me to handle. Sometimes it is a birthday of a loved one, or the day they died. Some days the darkness leaps out at me all at once when I am not expecting it. Maybe I see a crow or someone tells a story about Monkey Beach or the Aux’gwalas and suddenly I cannot breathe and I am certain I am drowning, then it passes and I breathe deep and move forward.

During the worst times I come home. I take offerings of food down with me to the grave yard and light a fire. I sit there and talk. It is simple, but sometimes it is enough just to know that they are there and I can look into the darkness at the stars and try to believe I am not alone in this world. I will stand. I will put out the fire. I will go home and I will go back to school. I will work hard. I will survive, but for now, in this moment, it is just me and the stars and the ghosts that I love.

Explanation

I decided that Jimmy was dead because he was in “The Land of the Dead” with Ma-ma-o and Mick. Of course, Lisa could have imagined everything she saw on Monkey Beach, just like when she imagined Tab’s ghost and wondered if she “was hallucinating” (Robinson 301), or “had alcohol poisoning” (Robinson 302). She was, however, sober on Monkey Beach. There is also a lot more detail to her vision of The Land of the Dead than there is in her dream of Tab’s ghost and it includes a lot of the elements of previous visions that she accepted as reality. For example, the thing which feeds on her blood resembles the thing she encounters in the therapists office. Her visions on the beach are very realistic. They provide the reader with a lot of information that they need to figure out what happened to Jimmy and what will happen to Lisa. If the vision was false, the reader would be left back at square one with no idea of who is dead and who is not, or what is going to happen next.

If the vision is taken seriously than it is only logical to assume that Lisa is not dead since Ma-ma-moo so firmly insisted that “When it’s your time to go, you go [...] nothing you can do or say will change it. We’re where we belong, but you have to go back” (Robinson 372). Her parents were not present in the vision, suggesting that their search for Jimmy did not end in their deaths. After I made this interpretation of the vision I had do decide what would happen to Lisa. I could not write her death, and I did not think she would survive long on Monkey beach so I had to figure out how she left. It is noted that her boat was “drifting away in the tide” (Robinson 370), but the novel ends by saying “In the distance, I hear the sound of a speedboat” (Robinson 374). Near the beginning of the novel, Lisa notes that at least her Aunt Edith’s “way of dealing with stress gets the housework done” (Robinson 40). All of her efforts to clean the house and feed Lisa suggest that she will worry when she discovers that Lisa has left on her own, so it makes sense that she would send her husband to find Lisa.

All I knew about what Lisa would do after she left the beach was that she needed to talk to Karaoke since, in the vision, Jimmy said “Tell her” (Robinson 374). I noticed that at the start of the book it is “Late summer” (Robinson 2) while at the end of the book it is noted that she is in school with Karaoke when Jimmy first leaves. She was in grade twelve since the year before that she mentions being “Still high from surviving the first half of grade eleven” (333). This means she probably graduated high school, but it is too late for her to go to university that fall. Lisa could have given up on life, but since that option was already explored in Vancouver, I wanted to explore what would happen if she did not and decided that she would go to university the following year. She was cynical of Jimmy’s hope for the future when he said he was going to study crows so perhaps it seems strange that she would mimic his dreams.

I think that when people mourn they can either spiral into darkness or they can hold onto their hope no matter how feeble it is. Lisa had already spiralled into darkness and I think that she may have learned the futility of that kind of reaction. She will probably still have dark days. Life will not be easy, but I think she will try to work towards positive change. I wanted to honour Eden Robinson’s ambiguous style so all I did was bring Lisa to university. At this point she does not know what she will do with her degree if she manages to get it. She does not even really know what she will major in. She also does not know who she will fall in love with. I do not think it would be right to answer every question because that is not how life is. There will always be mystery and trouble and I think that part of what Robinson does in her writings is illustrate what it is like to live in the shadow of all that mystery and suffering. What I tried to do is show how there is still hope within Robinson’s painful stories.