Yearly Archives: 2005

Just One Thing

It’s been a long week, although it was tech­ni­cal­ly made short­er from the long week­end. Three can­cel­la­tions in three nights. Nothing’s work­ing out. I left work ear­ly yes­ter­day because my eyes stopped func­tion­ing. The pre­vi­ous day I’d worked a full 14 hours.

I used to get angry or frus­trat­ed at things like this, but now I find myself cold and emo­tion­less, accept­ing things as the way they are. The advan­tage is that I’m a much more sta­ble per­son. It isn’t even any attempt to be sto­ic, but I’m sick of all the bull­shit.

All I want is a break, just one thing to go my way.

Please?

Growing Pains

Thumbnail: Dry bacon

I caught my father after a show­er. How for­mal the word, father. Like address­ing a char­ac­ter in some Elizabethan play. His hair was mussed, wild, even thin­ner than before. He’s been going gray since he was 15, and every cou­ple of months he colours it black again. It works for him, tak­ing at least ten years off his age. People don’t real­ly know how old he is until he tells them that I’m in my twen­ties.

How scary it was to see him like this, like some crazy old fool with all his hair point­ing out­ward and uncom­posed, but still know­ing that he was still my sta­ble, strong, cold father. The thought that he may one day go senile, lose the viril­i­ty that he seems so des­per­ate to cling to, filled me with pity.

The bacon they serve me for break­fast is dry, dull, devoid of soft fat, or grease that pools in the waves of each strip. A result of his heart con­di­tion. No more cheese, red meat only once a week.

Thumbnail: Wrinkled hand

Even my moth­ers’ del­i­cate hands have deeply with­ered, though they remain soft from her atten­tive care, which include vary­ing sorts of design­er hand creams and spe­cial­ized lotions that fol­low her every­where. My par­ents have long stopped wear­ing their wed­dings bands, but she wears one of my grand­moth­ers rings, a beau­ti­ful old-fash­ioned cut on a clamp mount, left to her in the will. I remem­ber my grand­moth­er pinch­ing my cheeks, hold­ing my hand, her skin loose but, like mom, sup­ple as a soft­ened chamois.

I see this ring on my moth­er, and real­ize that she’s get­ting old­er too.

Elementary School

Thumbnail: School crossing sign

Thumbnail: Four-square tiles

Thumbnail: Rusty tetherball pole

Thumbnail: School portable

This was my ele­men­tary school. The Catholic insti­tu­tion I attend­ed dur­ing the first few years of mov­ing here. Where I used to offer best-friend sta­tus for a mouth­ful of Big League Chew. Old, famil­iar four-square courts are still paint­ed on, unmoved. The T‑ball poles are rust­ed out and miss­ing their teth­ers. Countless feet jump­ing, run­ning, skip­ping dur­ing recess have caused the pave­ment to warp and crack. Even the old porta­bles are any­thing but, their famil­iar beige tones still inhab­it­ing the back of the school, built out of con­crete and plas­tic foam when the town was bud­ding, and the class­rooms could­n’t han­dle all the stu­dents. Walking up the wood­en stairs, I bet they even have the same groan­ing creaks.

Continue read­ing “Elementary School”…

Weekend By Bus

Thumbnail: Greyhound station

Leaving by bus, in the rain and in the dark, is some­thing spe­cial.

The per­fect album to put on is Ágætis Byrjun by Sigur Rós, with songs like Starálfur and Olsen Olsen, but espe­cial­ly Sven-G-Englar and Ný Batteri. Sounds are dis­tract­ing all around with the peo­ple talk­ing, the bat­ter­ing of rain­drops on the wind­shield, the thud-thump of the uneven high­way road, but they grad­u­al­ly fade to a lethar­gic pulse. The unrec­og­niz­able tim­bres of each dis­tin­guish­able instru­ment take over.

This is the moment. The exact pur­pose of the song. The notes are pure, amor­phous colours in the dark­ness, a dul­cet damper for the out­side world.

Soon the rhythm of the pass­ing city lights will become more and more sparse, and all that will be left in the win­dows are the reflec­tions of those with their over­head lights on, read­ing books or keep­ing eye-con­tact.

It’s been ten months since the last time you did this.

How has so much hap­pened since then?

Music Is The Only Thing

I was­n’t plan­ning on writ­ing until next Monday, but I can’t seem to get away from this.

With the falling tem­per­a­tures come late morn­ings. Stepping out­side ear­li­er, the sky was still dimmed with the street lamps on from the pre­vi­ous night. It felt like the sun had already set, and it was only going to get dark­er. I was in the mood for some jazz, so I fid­get­ed on my iPod until I found a Duke Ellington col­lec­tion. Unfortunately, most of it is com­prised of big band swing songs, fast mov­ing, major keys, a sound that did­n’t quite match the mood. I set­tled on Going Up, a calm pro­gres­sive jazz piece fea­tur­ing brush­es instead of drum sticks, har­mon mutes in the trum­pets, and Les Spann on flute. Four years of pri­vate lessons, with four dif­fer­ent bands in high-school, have made me appre­ci­ate the pol­ished, round­ness of his sound. He trav­els chro­mat­i­cal­ly with utter smooth­ness on the wood­wind, and unlike on the piano, which the fin­gers can move across in one sweep­ing motion, each note is played with a seem­ing­ly ran­dom com­bi­na­tion of fin­gers. In his head, he’s four bars ahead of his fin­gers, allow­ing his into­na­tion remain pre­cise with each pur­pose­ful note.

Sometimes it feels like music is the only thing that can bring out my emo­tions again. Most of them have been replaced by sim­ple deter­mi­na­tion. Everything is busi­ness busi­ness busi­ness because the world is cold cold cold.

I’m going home for the Thanksgiving long-week­end. A much need­ed break that I’ve been plan­ning for a while now. Funny that I still call it home when it’s a five hour dri­ve away, and I own my own house in this city. Home isn’t where you grew up, it isn’t where you live now, home is where the par­ents are.