Posts in category "Photos"

i know i found the recipe for me

All I do nowa­days is dance. Not in any coor­di­nat­ed man­ner, mind you, and cer­tain­ly not in the pres­ence of any­one else.

I’m only now start­ing to real­ize how nec­es­sary it was for me to sur­vive that cru­cible last year, and how impor­tant it was for me to save myself. It has­n’t tem­pered the extremes, but they don’t last as long any­more.

Blue Mountain village at night

 

It’s com­fort­ing to know I’ve been through this before. It was­n’t all for noth­ing. I’m a lit­tle wis­er now, and I’m not going to make the same mis­takes again.

This win­ter hit us heavy once more, and like it I refuse to die.

nowhere near as morbid as it sounds

All I want to do late­ly is go out and shoot and edit and post, but I have no sto­ries to tell. I’m still try­ing to write them, so I can put them in these cuts and look back and live for­ev­er in the mem­o­ries. To dance among the motion and glim­mer, and blink against the bright­ness of the sun.

I’ve been filled with such tremen­dous inten­si­ty, and hope, and excite­ment, buoyed by the fact that I’ll always have a gui­tar and a dis­arm­ing smile.

burlesque cake

 

Peace has been made with this new-self. It’s as if every change, every cycle I go through, takes time for me to get used to the new skin. I know I’ll always be flawed. I’ll always make mis­takes, but that means I’ll always be learn­ing.

I’ve had enough of crazy devel­op­ments. I’ll be hap­py once the dust set­tles and I’m back to my reg­u­lar life again, some point beyond the sum­mer. The spring is nev­er remark­able; it’s just a haze between the heat and the snow. It already smells like hot sum­mers nights, a com­fort­ing mix of pollen and con­crete. It’s gonna be oh so good.

gotta go on

This is my cur­rent anthem. T‑Dot rep­re­sent.

Sometimes I won­der if I only love Toronto because of the peo­ple. There are always things to do and friends to vis­it, and it feels like my home­town. I hate the dri­ving, I hate all the cops down­town, I hate the fact that it takes me at least half an hour to get any­where, but I always look for­ward to going back.

baby sun conure

Baby sun conure. This lit­tle guy was just start­ing to grow feath­ers, and kept in an incu­ba­tor.

The iso­la­tion was nice, but it got to the point where ____ would say he was proud of me just for hav­ing lunch with some­one. Now I find myself going out more and more and it’s a refresh­ing change of pace. Not that I felt like I was uncom­fort­able being home alone; more like the urge to be out over­took me, even if that meant I was still alone among oth­ers.

I won­der if my her­mitage was just an extend­ed stretch of time I need­ed to recharge after my trip to Europe. Or maybe it was know­ing that the next stretch of time until the sum­mer was going to be busy.

This time it does­n’t feel like a tran­si­tion peri­od, because I know it won’t last. I’ll even­tu­al­ly go back to extend­ed time alone, and I’ll for­ev­er be in the flux of socia­bil­i­ty and soli­tude, win­ter and sum­mer. The only thing that’s con­stant is hap­pi­ness. Sure, there are flash­es of mis­for­tune, but they’re fleet­ing, con­tained, and just a part of day-to-day life, noth­ing out of the ordi­nary. Maybe this is why I’ve been find­ing it hard to write. I’ve always been fueled by suf­fer­ing in some way or anoth­er, but all that’s left now is this con­tent­ment.

until tomorrow

The days go on con­tin­u­ous­ly, mea­sured in beats-per-minute. Winter’s here in all it’s bright glo­ry, but the sun sets a lit­tle lat­er every day, mark­ing the change of sea­sons. It’s the only way for me to keep track of the pass­ing time.

So many days are spent alone, yet I don’t feel lone­ly. The only prob­lem with iso­la­tion is that it lets me spend too much time with my own thoughts. This, com­bined with my intro­vert­ed ten­den­cies (which means my stim­u­la­tion comes from mem­o­ries), makes me feel like I’m trapped in the past. I sup­pose it’s not all bad, but it cer­tain­ly does make it hard­er for me to heal.

Bronwen puts on makeup

 

I don’t know what to write. There isn’t the same strug­gle or need to vent. I find myself sit­ting and star­ing at a blank screen for hours at a time. It’s not like I feel the need to say some­thing for the sake of it. There are still thoughts and ideas that linger, things to get off my chest, but they’re either too too sim­ple to men­tion, or too com­plex to put down.

It’s strange to see this path laid out before me. I could wan­der off and explore new things, but I’m still too com­fort­able.

Things don’t change, but I don’t think I mind so much any­more.

Larissa — Takamine F370SS

I sup­pose I should make a for­mal intro­duc­tion.

My dad knew I was look­ing for a gui­tar so I could start teach­ing myself, and his co-work­er’s daugh­ter hap­pened to be sell­ing hers. I decid­ed not to buy it cause I had no idea what it was, not to men­tion the fact that I’m noto­ri­ous­ly picky about these kinds of things. He bought me the gui­tar any­way (using my birth­day as an excuse), and I drove to Toronto to pick it up the first chance I had when I got back from Europe.

I asked Steve to do a demo of the gui­tar because his skills can real­ly show it off.

Takamine F370SS: guitar front

Takamine F370SS sol­id wood acoustic dread­nought.

It turns out the gui­tar is absolute­ly gor­geous, with sol­id spruce on top and sol­id koa on the back and sides. And being hand­made in Japan in 1999 — the only year this mod­el was in pro­duc­tion — makes it an instru­ment that will nev­er be replaced. An heir­loom I’ll pass down to my chil­dren if I ever have any.

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