I was filled with nothing but happiness in that moment. By that point, I planned on marrying you one day, as I had, perhaps a little foolishly, dreamed of building a life with you. The only thing left was figuring out how to convince you to dream a little bit too.

 

A few things have happened since we last spoke. Nothing important enough to mention if I ever bumped into an old lover and tried to make small talk. Except, perhaps, that my grandmother passed away, Aaron and Karen are expecting another child, and I started pursuing a lifelong dream of becoming an amateur astronomer.

In one class I learned the Sun’s distance from the Earth is about 400 times the Moon’s distance, and the Sun’s diameter is about 400 times the Moon’s diameter. It’s the fact that these ratios are approximately equal that causes the Sun and Moon to appear the same size when the three astronomical objects line up, creating the effect we observe during a total eclipse. If the Sun were any closer, we wouldn’t see the fierce corona that borders the shadow of the moon. Any further, and a ring of the Sun’s light would still be visible. It’s a phenomenon that’s unique in our solar system, due to the sheer improbability of these prerequisites occurring.

(I didn’t take this picture.)

Eclipses are a rare phenomenon. Total eclipses even more so; they occur every 18 months, at different locations, and never last more than a few minutes as the shadow moves along the ground at over 1700 km/h.

Maybe this is why some people chase them, making pilgrimages to locations where an eclipse is predicted to happen. One group even rented a plane and flew along the darkest part of the shadow cast by the moon as it traveled over the Earth, and artificially extended an eclipse from 7 minutes to 74 minutes. Which, in my book, is pretty awesome.

People who’ve been through an eclipse give similar accounts of the experience; it looks like night in a matter of minutes, it feels like the heat is being sucked out of the ground, the animals get all spooked out because they know something extraordinary is happening.

But the Moon is also drifting away from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 cm a year, which means there eventually won’t be any more total solar eclipses. We happen to be living in a time when we can still experience them, as future generations will only have second-hand accounts from our best words and pictures. They won’t be able to feel the change in the atmosphere, as the Sun hides behind the Moon for that brief moment. How fortunate we are to be able to experience this event, which not only requires the heavenly bodies to line up, but also requires us to be at the right place on the right planet at the right time.

 

I began to wonder what combination of forces brought us there, to sit in the warmth of spring in a sushi shop downtown. Why fate had delivered you to my office one morning, for you to toss your head back and giggle and walk away after I made some corny joke at our introduction.

We were two traveling bodies on our own paths that happened to align for a few spins around the sun. It was a beautiful accident, a gasoline rainbow, an experience as special as it was serendipitous that left me forever changed.

Every picture I took was to capture what I feared I’d never see again, and when our paths diverged, I kept looking at those photos, wondering what kept me drawn to these memories.

Then I realized it was because I didn’t want it to end. You were my eclipse, and I was a man on that plane, chasing a shadow.

Trying to live in your love a moment longer.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2010. | 12 comments
Post tags: astronomy, love, memories, muse, spring | Categories: Favourites, Photos, Random

To this:

There were almost 30 people crammed into my living room for a night of intimate music and an ice cream bar¹ (on which I spent nearly $100, including all the fixins). Admittedly, I got a little overstimulated and panicky somewhere in the middle, due to all people, but Pat and Jen came and talked to me, and they calmed me down. It also got really hot with all the people in there, so I cranked up the A/C a few hours ahead of time.

Arne, who goes by the stage name Duryea Hawkins and was Shane’s surprise guest musician, completely blew everyone away with his opening number, named Snowman. At the end of the song, you can hear Dan say, “Wow”. It’s so good, I have it on constant repeat at the moment.

Once again, Shane dedicated a song to me (woo!), my favourite of course, It’s A Drag. He also did a few new songs I had never heard before; one of the best parts of concerts is being able to hear new material that a musician is working on.

And for the first time, I got to see Jesse rap in person. He was going to do an all acoustic show, with several exotic instruments, but then Nick (who does the backing vocals/beats and goes by the stage name Rockefort F. Loopfrog) bought a loop machine, so they decided to use that instead. Quite different from the studio produced sounds that I’m used to hearing from Jesse, but just as good.

The artists all went home happy with the money that was donated² and made from the swag they sold.

Since it was my first house show, I really wanted to enjoy it instead of fussing with getting the proper shot, so I set up my camera and left it on in the corner. Next time, I’m going to do a bit more camera work.

1. This must have been a fairly memorable part, because people like Jess called it the Ice Cream Party instead of the House Show.
2. Legally, as the venue, I’m not allowed to make money, so I have accept “donations” as a cover charge.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2009. | 3 comments
Post tags: music | Categories: Daily Life, Favourites, Photos

Note how I didn’t say “easy”. Heaven knows I had a hard enough time with dating in my teens. And twenties. And probably 30s.

According to her, we also have a suicide pact, even though I have no recollection of this. The only reason I can think of agreeing to that is if large parts of the world were destroyed by meteors, leading to the collapse of the economic system, creating anarchy, and reducing everyone to hunter-gatherers.

Bronwen and I are most certainly not hunter-gatherers, and we’d probably suffer unbearably just trying to survive, or be killed soon after because we’re too naive or compassionate for a dog-eat-dog world. The thing is, if that happened I’d try to join forces with Pat and Jen, because they always have everything together¹. So maybe if they were also killed by this cosmic hailstorm, then it would still be an option.

1. Pat’s the one who believes that at least one person should be in control in every group at all times, and that he is this person. The only time he was ever inebriated was for his bachelor party.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2009. | 5 comments
Post tags: Bronwen, friends, Pat, suicide | Categories: Favourites, Random

I was supposed to meet you here three years ago, and they’re out of apple cider. The cranberry cider is tart, but only too much when you sip it so. There’s a subtly distinct taste to it, barely enough to stop me from wondering if I just paid $2.45 for warm cranberry juice. I didn’t even want this drink; I just wanted to sit down and write.

I never would have come here if you hadn’t suggested it. There are too many people. Too many going for the freshly-grounded, shade-grown, fair trade bullshit that’s been marketed to the hipsters who think they’re doing the world a favour by patronizing the right kind of places. Pretentious people who come here to read, then put their headphones on because it’s too noisy.

I don’t fit in. That’s probably a good thing.

I was supposed to meet you here three years ago, but your boyfriend got jealous and wouldn’t let you come.

We met on the bus, and I haven’t seen you since.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 7 comments
Post tags: women | Categories: Favourites, Random

The morning light comes in blue and soft and subtle through the window, and the stars begin to fade.

I want to hold her like this under a tree in the summer and pass the time in her company, alive to every moment we’re together. I want to hold her like this when the cars and streets are buried under snow outside, so we may truly know what it is to be warm and comfortable. I want to run my finger along the softness of her face, so I may learn every landmark and feature, and never forget. I want to read to her my favourite books on lazy Sunday afternoons, so I can take her to where they’ve taken me. I want to feel her breath against my skin, the breath that gives her life, and me joy. I want to wake up to find she’s not away in another bed, but next to me, lost in slumber, for there can be no other such simple happiness.

This is where I’m perfectly content, lost in a moment when time has stopped and nothing else matters.

But I know it won’t last forever. She’ll soon be gone. I won’t be the one to do these things with her, the one to love her the way she was meant to be loved, the one to love her as deeply as she deserves. There’s no use in thinking about it now.

The one who inspires me to create wonderful things, to make beauty as I see it in her, so that others may share in this feeling. If I had a million words to describe her grace, it still wouldn’t be enough.

I could be sad, but I’d rather be happy instead.

So as the sun begins to rise, I indulge myself a little longer, and hold her closer before drifting off to sleep.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 13 comments
Post tags: happiness, inspiration, love, muse, women | Categories: Daily Life, Favourites

So one last touch and then you’ll go
And we’ll pretend that it meant something so much more
But it was vile, and it was cheap
And you are beautiful but you don’t mean a thing to me

—Death Cab for Cutie, Tiny Vessels

I got this picture in New Jersey. It’s the most peculiar size for a photograph: 3 7/16 by 4 13/16 inches.

For some reason, I see it properly like this — landscape orientation, with the white stripe on the left — when it could just as well be rotated any other way. This is the bias I place on it. The way I view it.

It almost looks like a room with a wall in frame on the left, and the camera has metered for a flash off the wall, underexposing the rest of the picture. There are two smears in the blackness. Maybe an out-of-focus object, maybe a fingerprint on the lens.

I didn’t take the picture. Someone else did, thought it was bad, and was about to throw it out before I asked for it. Someone who took me for granted. Someone who’s world I lived in but for a week, in the midst of the intense summer humidity and coitus interruptus.

I’ve kept it in one of my notebooks since. The edges have turned yellow, and the corners blunt from handling.

Every time I look at it, I like to think that I see something in that grain and that noise. That something’s there; I just don’t see it because there isn’t enough light to expose it, but it exists nonetheless. Some photographic kōan, where I become that which I seek.

But I know there isn’t, the way I know it was nothing more than passing moment, a week forgotten, a life unchanged.

And I’ve been happily fooling myself ever since.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 3 comments
Post tags: memories, philosophy, photography | Categories: Favourites, Thoughts

I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, I’ve got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da and here I am
The only living boy in New York

Half of the time we’re gone but we don’t know where,
And we don’t know here.

—Simon and Garfunkle, The Only Living Boy in New York

Every day, we get caught up in our lives.

We adopt pets to give us a sense of family. We eat breakfast at work or in the car to save ourselves time so we can work some more. We scorn those who express emotion, we avoid eye contact with strangers on the street.

Everything we do — the food we eat, the movies we watch, the home team we cheer for, our coffee shop romances — they’re just trying to fill that hole, that gap that’s missing, the only way we feel alive.

We don’t slow down, we don’t figure things out. We don’t reflect and appreciate what we have.

Like strawberry cheesecake ice cream with a thick graham cracker swirl. Like the serenity of the snow that falls around us, when heaven decides to bless the earth.

Life gets in the way of living.

And now I realize just how guilty I’ve been of this. I’ve been looking for love, but never recognized it when I found it. All I ever wanted to do was lie in bed, look into your eyes, and go through my favourite albums with you. But I never did. And now I wonder. Why can’t we just live? We can’t we just love?

Sometimes you have to stop. You can’t capture everything. You need to throw yourself in.

A thousand kisses deep.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 5 comments
Post tags: life, love, music, reflection, social commentary | Categories: Favourites, Random

If a woman sleeps alone, it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart but there is one sin he will not forgive: if a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.

—Zorba the Greek

There exists a spot on every woman that needs to be kissed.

It can be as innocuous as the curl of the lip, the web of the hand, or a mark on a landscape of skin.

It’s the responsibility of a man to find this spot. Not as a service to the woman — sometimes she isn’t even aware of such a spot — but as a service to the creator of such things.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 4 comments
Post tags: responsibility, social commentary, women | Categories: Favourites, Random

Almost a year after I had managed to leave the island behind, the room, the floor, the sheets, the rape — I accidently ended up on your blog entry called “The beginning to the end” and it changed my world. It awoke feelings inside of me that I had for a years time tried to suppress and scare off so that I never again would open up to anyone, never trust anyone and therefor never end up in the same situation again. At that time, all men were a potential threath to me.

Reading and watching that very blogentry have had such a great impact on my life and will to become ‘myself’ again, to reclaim my body and to dare to move towards feeling and being ‘beautiful’ again. Your video granted me the sensation of how sincere, pure and giving love and affection truly are when it’s shared and not forced. It made me remember blocked out feelings and situations and it made me start to long for something that I had completely shut out for over a year.

I have been wanting to write you this email for quite some time, but I havent been sure of myself or if the “new” me (which is the old in fact) would survive and I didnt want to make this into a sunshine story if it really wasnt — but after many downhills, trials and tribulations, theraphy and social interaction, I am there, I am back and I am standing strong again. Nothing will ever be the same, but at least I made the right choice, for me. I have always been lifeloving in overload and even if I am only halfway there yet, it is still enough to keep me going.

I still watch that video every now and then, to remind myself that anything is possible and that you can recieve “help” from the most unexpected sources. It used to make me cry, now it makes me smile instead, isnt that beautiful? I know perfectly well that you never meant to post that entry for me, but it helped me in one of the most difficult times in my life and for that I will be forever grateful. Thank you.

Yours sincerly,
Emma

I’m at a loss for words.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 9 comments
Post tags: beauty, confidence, depression, human interaction, rape | Categories: Favourites, Random

Waxing John from Jeff Ngan on Vimeo.

I suppose that near the end of the video my sadistic side comes out when I start to laugh, or dare I say, enjoy hearing him scream.

“This is like true friendship”, he says, “Waxing your best friends back when you’ve got a Y-chromosome”.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2008. | 7 comments
Post tags: friendship, John | Categories: Favourites, Random, Video