a stronger girl would shake this off

Chapter Two

I remember the first time I ever saw him. I was in college, living with an insignificant first boyfriend who afforded me the opportunity to get the hell out of my parent’s house. We had been living together, tumultuously, for three years. I first saw Shane standing on top of a picnic table reciting poetry aloud to a group of admirers. He was all gangly -not yet a man - ganglylimbs, spiky black hair and black leather motorcycle jacket.

I walked by in my matching jacket. Nothing happened. It was just one of those moments. A moment where you see someone and know that you are destined to be with that person.

It wasn’t until the next semester that we met. We ended up in the same poetry class together. A class full of promising young writers and a professor looking to reclaim his lost youth as part of the Tish Group in Vancouver.

Shane and I, along with a soon to be lifelong friend Eric, were picked out by the instructor to be his prodigies. We met at the bar down the road many late nights, drinking beer and planning our emergence on to the young writers scene in Vancouver.

We began an anonymous poetry chat sheet. Funded, unbeknownst to them, by the English Department. We picked the best of the poems submitted to us every week (often one of our own.) Photocopied them on coloured parchment and distributed them across campus and around town.

We began submitting our poetry to local literary magazines, attending poetry readings and crashing parties at famous Vancouver writer’s houses; George Bowering, Gladys Hindmarch, Stan Persky.

We spent our evenings drinking beer at a cheap hotel downtown and feeling powerful.

One night Shane and I met at his little apartment. We went to the liquor store and bought some vodka. We mixed it with orange juice. Nervous and alone he asked me if I was going to kiss him.

I did.

I went home that night and broke up with my boyfriend and slept on the couch. I rented myself a bedroom in a crappy house in West Vancouver the next day.

My life was beginning. I was so full of hope for my new future. Knowing that I had finally found something that I could do well. Something that made me happy.