August 18, 2010

nothing gold can stay

7

The tears and the smears on my glasses which I look through to type this are telling me I’m still not over her. Or per­haps, the idea of her, because she had always held back a part of her­self from being mine completely.

This is what hap­pens when a true friend stabs you in the front. I guess I’ve been avoid­ing these thoughts for a while now, and con­fronted with them in con­ver­sa­tion, the real­ity has never been more clear.

I’m still a bro­ken man.

Even with the mixed sig­nals, the incon­sis­tency, and the pain, it was still the most sig­nif­i­cant rela­tion­ship I’ve ever had, and that’s what makes it so hard to let go. My other rela­tion­ships may have been free of all the drama, but they also lacked the depth, inten­sity, and intimacy.

There’s noth­ing I would have changed but the end, which dragged on for a year, one suture ripped out after another. It was far from a clean break, and any­thing but resolution.

I know I wasn’t the only per­son to go through the pain of sep­a­ra­tion, but the break wasn’t sup­posed to last for­ever. I was will­ing to step away so I could heal and be strong enough to be friends in time, to be there for her, to be ready to accept the next guy. And most impor­tantly, I was will­ing to come back.

She was sup­posed to be strong enough to let me go until I was ready.

Letter

I believed her.

Why couldn’t it have ended that night, instead of the mind­fuck that con­tin­ued for months after? Why couldn’t the last thing for her to leave me be the let­ter she wrote on the sta­tion­ary I gave her? Why couldn’t she have kept the promise she made to do what­ever it took to keep me in her life, and stayed away?

We haven’t seen each other in over half a year. It’s been even longer since we had an actual con­ver­sa­tion. It’s time for me to wake the fuck up. It’s time for me to deal with my emo­tions and the real­ity of the sit­u­a­tion. It’s time for me to move on instead of hold­ing on. It’s time for me to under­stand that I’ll never be what she needs, and she’ll never accept me as I am.

It’s time for me to real­ize that it’s over.

Tagged as
Filed under
Random Thoughts
August 13, 2010

29 9/12: The Rocker

3

Music has always been a big part of my life, so it’s strange to con­sider the fact that I only seri­ously took up an instru­ment the year I’m turn­ing 30, which I gen­er­ally con­sider late to be start­ing any­thing new.

I used to play piano and flute, but that was never really my choice. For the for­mer, it was more of my mom want­ing me to be a good Chinese boy, and me not want­ing to let her down. When it came to the lat­ter, my school had a strong empha­sis on arts, and either visual arts or music were manda­tory. I chose music1, and played the flute; far from ideal for a teenager going through puberty and an iden­tity crisis.

I bought my first ukulele a few months ago, and I don’t think I’ve stopped play­ing since.

Self portrait at 29 9/12

Jammin’ in my jam­mies. With what may pos­si­bly be an erection.

Photo by Jess.

So much of my life has been filled by those four lit­tle strings. It’s an entirely new medium I’m still explor­ing, a mus­cle I’d yet to flex, a way of express­ing myself that’s so unlike any of my other outlets.

I get pains in my fin­gers and wrists from play­ing too much, so I struc­ture my life around the breaks; doing laun­dry, writ­ing, clean­ing my room, sort­ing my paper­work until the tin­gling or pinch­ing goes away. The pads of my fin­gers are dead. I used to fall asleep think­ing of her — now I work out scale pat­terns and chords across the fret­board in my head until I pass out. I even decided to make the ulti­mate com­mit­ment and grow out the nails on my strum­ming hand because the longer they get, the more pleased I am with the sound (and I find both long nails and asym­me­try absolutely dis­gust­ing).

It’s come to the point where I’d rather play ukulele than play games, or go out, or talk to peo­ple. I love play­ing so much that I enjoy it even though I’m still no good at it.

I turn 30 in three months, and music is my hot hot bath, my dead end, and my girlfriend.

The Turning 30 Series

  1. Ironic that I’m so much more of a visual artist now. [↑]
Tagged as
Filed under
Photos Random Thoughts
August 12, 2010

Protected: The Process

9

This post is pass­word pro­tected. To view it please enter your pass­word below:


Tagged as
Filed under
Daily Life Thoughts
July 22, 2010

Collab

2

This is pretty much the most awe­some sit­u­a­tion I can think of. A jam ses­sion with Nic on beats and bass, Jesse rap­ping and on organ + glock­en­spiel, Audra on clar­inet, and me on ukulele. Figuring out what sounds best, mod­i­fy­ing arrange­ments, prac­tic­ing until it feels right.

The night was actu­ally a rehearsal for Jesse’s upcom­ing Canadian liv­ing room tour, the last stop of which is in Ottawa, at the same place I first met Jesse and Audra and Jacob.

Rehearsal

 

Because Jesse’s sis­ter is only avail­able on the east­ern tour dates, that left a spot for one instru­ment on the final tour date, which I’ll excit­edly be fill­ing with my ukulele. It’s only for three songs (and singing one part of a three part har­mony) but it’s going to be so much fun.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here’s Jesse singing and rhyming and con­duct­ing us and play­ing the glock­en­spiel at the same time. It’s a new track off his upcom­ing album with an obvi­ous theme about video, except in this ver­sion he made an arrange­ment of Video Tape by Radiohead and VCR by The XX to book­end the verses. I’d never heard VCR, so Jesse had to teach me the chords on the fly.

I recorded this on my iPhone so I could prac­tice on my own; I won’t have a chance to see them for another rehearsal before they go on tour. I’d never heard the song before, and it was our first time play­ing it through together but every­one knew when to stop. It felt com­pletely nat­ural. We were com­mu­ni­cat­ing with­out words, our instincts cul­mi­nat­ing in that won­der­fully solid unison.

Even though I’m still rusty, it felt amaz­ing to be play­ing an instru­ment with other peo­ple again. And this time with mate­r­ial that’s fuck­ing genius, not the same old con­ser­va­tory pieces some teacher chooses for you. At one point I was play­ing around on the ukulele when Jesse had to get the phone, and Nic started putting beats to what I was doing and it made me want to steal Nic for all my practicing.

See Jesse Dangerously in your town:

Friday, July 23rd — The Bird House in Halifax, NS — 6156 Duncan Street, 10:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 24th — The Galley in Fredericton, NB — 1–178 Westmorland Street, 7:00 p.m (with feminist/anti-capitalist gum­boot troupe Rebelles).
Sunday, July 25th — Gallerie Rye in Montreal, PQ — 1331a Rue Ste Catherine Est, 8:00 p.m (with the vegan ukulele of Nicola IV).
Monday, July 26th — 160 Workshops in Ottawa, ON — 160 Primrose Avenue, 8:00 p.m. (with electronic/acoustic singer-songwriter Jacob Earl).

Tagged as
Filed under
Daily Life Photos Thoughts
July 13, 2010

29 8/12: The Son

0

There’s no rev­e­la­tion more star­tling than the fact that your dad is cooler than you.

This is espe­cially true of my own father, who isn’t just cool for an old guy, he’s cool period. As a teenager, I remem­ber him wear­ing a leather bomber jacket, and learn­ing to ride a pur­ple Kawasaki Ninja sport bike which he even­tu­ally traded in for a sil­ver Porsche.

When I was even younger, my friends would tell me he looked like a secret agent. One time he came to help me move out of res­i­dence, and his jeans had wider cuffs than mine (and back then I loved wear­ing wide-leg khakis). I can’t remem­ber a time when he didn’t wear some­thing by Lacoste, Polo, or Tommy, and even though he may dress far younger than his age, he can still pull it off.

Now he’s a man mov­ing closer to his 60s, dri­ving a Mercedes and a BMW, with what seems to have a coterie of women whose com­mon inter­est is him. He watches pop­u­lar movies, prac­tices singing, and dances on a reg­u­lar basis. Even my grandma once told me that peo­ple like him because he’s the fun one to be around.

Self portrait at 29 8/12

 

This is all very dif­fer­ent from me; a shy, intro­verted, awk­ward per­son whose idea of a good time gen­er­ally involves being in front of a computer.

Still, with all these dif­fer­ences, I know I’m his son. Just a chip off the old block, with the same work ethics, the same per­fec­tion­ist ten­den­cies, the same neu­rotic tendencies.

We get grumpy when we’re hun­gry. We hate feel­ing sweaty and some­times have to shower twice in a day. We make the same silly jokes when we’re around new peo­ple. We dec­o­rated our houses exclu­sively with mod­ern, min­i­mal­ist fur­ni­ture before we knew what each other’s houses looked like. And as I grow older, I’ve also started devel­op­ing the same night owl habits, care­free atti­tude, insom­nia, and diges­tion problems.

I turn 30 in four months, and I’m becom­ing my father’s son.

The Turning 30 Series

Tagged as
Filed under
Random Thoughts
June 23, 2010

Everlong

0

I rarely think of the one who loved me most, even though she still thinks of me. This isn’t on pur­pose; it’s a sim­ple case of me mean­ing more to her than vice versa.

I’ve avoided such an unre­quited obses­sion with my last love. I stopped all con­tact, cut myself off from any­thing that’d pre­vent me from heal­ing or mov­ing on, and I’m proud of myself for hav­ing the strength to break such self-destructive habits.

But I can’t hide from my own mem­o­ries. When touched and inspired so sig­nif­i­cantly, one can’t help but remain for­ever changed.

Between the choice of giv­ing things a chance and los­ing me for­ever, she chose the lat­ter. So I won­der if she ever thinks of me now, the one who will always have loved her most, or whether I’ve just become another one of the wounded boys who stag­gered and fell so help­lessly against her graces.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
June 13, 2010

29 7/12: The Taoist

10

I got these tat­toos to remind myself to stay on the path. A reminder like this is some­thing of a para­dox; to be on the path is to be unaware of the path.

Even though I strongly believed in the tenets of Taoism, I still found myself off the path more often than on it. There was a point where I began to ques­tion whether I was truly a Taoist or just a Tao-enthusiast, because my under­stand­ing of the ideas didn’t nec­es­sar­ily mean an abil­ity to apply them to my life.

Self portrait at 29 7/12

 

But over time, I for­got about my tat­toos. Or, should I say, I stopped think­ing about them, the way one may be so accus­tomed to the nose on one’s face as to never dwell on the idea of it’s existence.

In the same way, I’ve for­got­ten about the path too, even though I know I’m on it. I don’t seek coun­cil from the Tao Te Ching nowa­days, because there’s noth­ing left that I don’t under­stand. I found the feel­ing of seren­ity I’d been seek­ing for so long.

I turn 30 in five months, and I finally believe I’m a Taoist.

The Turning 30 Series

Tagged as
Filed under
Photos Thoughts
June 11, 2010

Protected: Big Fish

10

This post is pass­word pro­tected. To view it please enter your pass­word below:


Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
June 8, 2010

romantically vulnerable

8

I’m left feel­ing very vul­ner­a­ble and won­der­ing if I can be truly attracted to some­one for who they are, instead of the idea of a rela­tion­ship and the asso­ci­ated com­fort of famil­iar­ity and phys­i­cal con­nec­tion. I miss affec­tion­ate text mes­sage con­ver­sa­tions, spon­ta­neous plans to cud­dle, and hav­ing some­one to spoil, but I need more time to sort out my feel­ings, and to get over the last one.

This is the exact rea­son I had to take a break from her. I haven’t had any con­tact in a while, and even though I sel­dom think of her these days, I’d be lying if I said I’ve for­got­ten completely.

There are morn­ings I wake up with the mem­ory of her next to me in bed, pass­ing hours with only del­i­cate grazes between us. It’s as if my sub­con­scious is still lin­ger­ing on what we had, even though my con­scious has given up on what could have been. Wanting to live my life with her became such a habit that I still catch myself wish­ing she could be there to share in my con­tent­ment when I’m sit­ting out­side with the breeze against my skin on sunny Spring days.

She never under­stood why such a break would take so long1, or why I couldn’t give her a solid time-frame, but now I know it was the right deci­sion. Even though the pain and jeal­ousy have left me, I have to let go of the good mem­o­ries just as much.

Not that I can’t be in a rela­tion­ship with some­one right now. Rather, I shouldn’t, cause it’d be unfair to the other per­son; I still catch myself mak­ing com­par­isons to her, believ­ing that no one will be as dynamic, inspir­ing, or good for me. Or wish­ing I could some­how relive those mem­o­ries through some­one else, even though I know that new, won­der­ful, unique expe­ri­ences are cre­ated with every rela­tion­ship and every partner.

I know where I need to be before I’m ready to be with some­one again. I’ve been com­pletely taken with peo­ple in the past, and even­tu­ally I truly get over them. It may take years, but one day I wake up and the mem­o­ries don’t affect me any­more, though they remain as beau­ti­ful as they are important.

  1. And this break was with the expec­ta­tion that we’d even­tu­ally be in con­tact again, which would assuredly take even longer! [↑]
Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
May 27, 2010

Arrows with no target

7

I don’t view my projects the same way any­more. I used to work towards a goal, an idea of what I wanted to achieve. But more recently I stopped car­ing about the end result, prob­a­bly due to this new per­spec­tive on…every­thing.

It’s a strange jux­ta­po­si­tion of know­ing that what you’re doing is ulti­mately insignif­i­cant, and find­ing enjoy­ment in doing it any­way. Like a child stack­ing a pile of blocks, only to knock them down.

The wikipedia arti­cle on wu wei explains feel­ing this bet­ter than I can:

The goal for wu wei is to get out of your own way, so to speak. This is like when you are play­ing an instru­ment and if you start think­ing about play­ing the instru­ment, then you will get in your own way and inter­fere with your own play­ing. It is aim­less action, because if there was a goal that you need to aim at and hit, then you will develop anx­i­ety about this goal.

Zhuangzi made a point of this, where he writes about an archer who at first didn’t have any­thing to aim at. When there was noth­ing to aim at, the archer was happy and con­tent with his being. He was prac­tic­ing wu wei. But, then he set up a tar­get and “got in his own way.” He was going against the Tao and the nat­ural course of things by hav­ing to hit that goal.

(This also reminds me of a verse from Leonard Cohen’s True Love Leaves No Traces: “Through win­dows in the dark/The chil­dren come, the chil­dren go/Like arrows with no tar­gets/Like shack­les made of snow.)

Nowadays, I do what I feel like doing and don’t stress out about not fin­ish­ing a project, cause I know I’ll feel like work­ing on it another day. It leaves me more loose ends, but I don’t mind. Luckily, I love cre­at­ing things. Trying dif­fer­ent medi­ums. New ways of express­ing myself.

Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
May 13, 2010

29 6/12: The Arrival

12

I haven’t had much to say lately. Suffering has always been a pre­req­ui­site for my cre­ativ­ity, as I only need to write when unful­filled or unhappy, and lately I haven’t felt either.

The real­iza­tion that I was happy only came when some­one asked how I was doing; I responded with my usual, generic, “I’m doing well, thanks”, and for the first time in as long as I could remem­ber, I didn’t feel like I was lying.

Self portrait at 29 6/12

 

Not that the desire to write has left me com­pletely. I still want to, though only because it’s an enjoy­able exer­cise in itself, not because I need to get some­thing off my chest. The world finally makes sense, and I won­der if it’s nec­es­sary to have this blog a place to sort out my thoughts anymore.

I’m sat­is­fied with the per­son I’ve become. I’ve stopped try­ing to change, or con­stantly fig­ur­ing out how to improve. I like me.

The seren­ity is get­ting bet­ter still, almost to the point where it’s an uncon­scious state-of-mind. Things don’t bother me the way they used to. I can dream with­out desire, I can live with­out bias, I can give with­out expect­ing, I can think with­out worry, and I can enjoy with­out guilt.

I turn 30 in half a year, and I finally feel like I’m where I should be.

The Turning 30 Series

Tagged as
Filed under
Photos Thoughts
May 4, 2010

CITY AIRLINE FLIGHT STATUS

7

Whenever I travel to the States, I can’t help but won­der if I could live here. Or any­where out­side of Canada, for that matter.

But I know it’s never more than a pass­ing fancy. I’m always hap­pier to touch down at home, than any­where else.

flight status board

Never, ever, ever fly through Philly. I’m pretty sure the air­port is in cahoots with the restau­rants and hotels, and they delay you every time you fly in to get you to spend money.

Tagged as
Filed under
Daily Life Photos Thoughts
April 21, 2010

Protected: The self coming true

8

This post is pass­word pro­tected. To view it please enter your pass­word below:


Tagged as
Filed under
Thoughts
April 13, 2010

29 5/12: The Uncarved

13

If, 5 years ago, you asked me where I’d be now, I couldn’t have even given you a decent guess.

I never imag­ined I’d be work­ing in graphic and web design at a den­tal lab. Or that my job would shift to more of a cor­po­rate level, some­thing that hap­pened because I hap­pened to have the right set of skills at the right time.

Self portrait at 29 5/12

 

I never imag­ined I’d meet peo­ple like Bronwen or Julie or Heather, or Frédéric and Misun, or Jesse and Audra, or Shane and Krista.

I never thought I’d dis­cover bands like Magneta Lane, The Knife, From Autumn to Ashes, and Muse.

I never knew I’d start play­ing the ukulele. Or have an art gallery show. Or finally, finally, finally start learn­ing astron­omy and own a telescope.

But I’m not sur­prised at where I’ve ended up. And who knows who I’ll meet, what I’ll do, or where I’ll be? Long ago, I decided I’d stay in Ottawa until my Tai Chi teacher retired, and that’s soon com­ing. This city is com­fort­able, but it’s also just as small, and I’ve always dreamed of liv­ing in an alpha city like Hong Kong or New York or London.

It’s easy to fall into the belief that we’re in con­trol of our lives or our des­tinies. The real­ity is that we’re just trav­el­ing through life like leaves being car­ried by the cur­rent in a stream. There are so many things that can hap­pen along the way out of our con­trol. Connections you can’t pre­dict. Experiences you can’t even imagine.

I turn 30 in seven months, and I don’t know where I’ll be, in life, love, or home.

The Turning 30 Series

Tagged as
Filed under
Photos Random Thoughts
April 9, 2010

Duets

3

One day I’d like to pick up an instru­ment with a big­ger range (than a ukulele1), and start writ­ing my own mate­r­ial. It’d be even bet­ter if I could form a duo with a per­son I was roman­ti­cally involved with, like The Dresden Dolls or Wild Strawberries2.

Sometimes The Dresden Dolls play extended ver­sions of their songs at con­certs3. The way they inter­act reveals such inti­macy. In each face, you can see how they’re com­pletely lost to the music in those moments of dis­so­nant bliss, but they’re lost together. From body lan­guage alone, they read each other for tim­ing, vol­ume, and inten­sity, until they feel where the other is going by instinct. That kind of chem­istry is rare, and it’d be amaz­ing to be able to share that with someone.

  1. The high-g reen­trant is what gives the ukulele it’s dis­tinct sound, but it feels so lim­it­ing some­times. [↑]
  2. Hellllllllllooooooooo Roberta Carter-Harrison circa Quiver. [↑]
  3. Okay, admit­tedly, Amanda’s singing isn’t any­where as good in the video as on the stu­dio ver­sion, but the nearly five-minute extended intro with Brian’s bril­liant drum solo would be worth the price of admis­sion by itself. [↑]
Tagged as
Filed under
Random Thoughts
Pages (23):123451020...Last »