Posts tagged with "autumn"

like it's a holiday

I final­ly had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join Trolley and Steph at their cot­tage, after a dri­ve of rough­ly three hours through scenic coun­try roads. I did­n’t even real­ize how close we were when we passed by it on the way to the farm 17 years ago, although it may as well have been 17 cen­turies. How strange it is to think of those as my sal­ad days when I had already expe­ri­enced enough heartache and trau­ma for a life­time.

cottage

They call it a cot­tage but it’s real­ly a house when there’s a full kitchen, laun­dry room, sev­er­al guest rooms with queen-sized beds; even glass show­er stalls.

Since then, I’ve loved and lost and loved again, taught myself to play gui­tar, and gained an unhealthy obses­sion with canine com­pan­ion­ship. If you asked me back then where I would pic­ture myself now, I might have giv­en you a few guess­es, but none would have been close to cor­rect.

lake

The view of the lake from atop the stone stair­case. Not seen: rows of wood­en reclin­ers and a var­ied col­lec­tion of water­craft — includ­ing a pad­dle boat — at the dock.

roasted veggies

One of the high­lights of a cot­tage week­end is the din­ner Steph spends hours cook­ing for every­one on Saturday. This time, it was falafel, toum, and roast­ed veg­gies, all pre­pared from scratch.

And she always knows how to plate a dish like a New York chef.

I kept myself mild­ly sedat­ed most of the time, but being away from my home for more than a few hours was scary enough to cause a pan­ic attack that left me star­ing dazed­ly into a buck­et once the ter­ror reced­ed. When con­stant com­pa­ny isn’t enough to keep the dark­ness at bay, it’s a sign that I’m still bro­ken and need to occu­py myself, lest I be con­sumed by the void of depres­sion.

Regardless of how dif­fi­cult it may have been, I was grate­ful for time I got to spend with my friends and their dog1, espe­cial­ly after all the iso­la­tion I’ve faced through­out the pan­dem­ic. It was also the per­fect chance for Trolley to try out his new drone while I played around with my new set of poi. If I had more spoons, per­haps I would have record­ed some music or tried to cap­ture the night sky, but I’m try­ing not to shame myself for mak­ing small­er goals and tak­ing the time I need to sur­vive.

  1. I make it a point to give Toba a treat and toy every time I see him, but this time I bought a bag of small­er pig-skin twists so I could sur­prise him through­out the week­end. He also got a bacon-scent­ed throw toy, cause he’s the good­est boy in the world, yes he is. []

keeping the rage tender

Fall has fall­en, and I was ready. I was wait­ing. I was trapped for months on end, when my body would­n’t coop­er­ate or anx­i­ety got the bet­ter of me. Even hear­ing Townes Van Zandt sing to me about snow in Raton was enough to make me miss win­ter again. I’d live vic­ar­i­ous­ly in any form of visu­al media I could find, just to remem­ber what it was like to feel the tin­gle of sun on my skin.

Now I can go out, but on my own terms and for the sake of it, not just ther­a­py or a doc­tor’s appoint­ment. It’s giv­en Heather and I a chance to date — to dress up for each oth­er, to trade secret glances about peo­ple who might be the oth­er’s type, to hold hands and show each oth­er off — instead of all the cop­ing we were left doing after falling into the rela­tion­ship so sud­den­ly.

portrait of Heather and Jeff

Rachel Weisz has noth­ing on dem brows.

Ever since she began her career, I found it dif­fi­cult to deal with how lit­tle we saw each oth­er. It felt like we were bare­ly con­nect­ing or hav­ing mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ences when we had such lim­it­ed time. Now that she has a bet­ter shift and a car­pool, we have an extra hour and a half togeth­er on week­days. Combined with Jesse com­mit­ting to hang­outs twice a month to play games or jam, it’s made a huge dif­fer­ence in the way I approach my goals and plan my time.

They’re small steps, but after so much regres­sion, I tend to be hap­py with any move­ment in the right direc­tion. Still, I won­der if I’ll ever find a bal­ance that won’t leave me fran­tic, one that’s con­ducive to get­ting my intro­vert needs met while let­ting me feel secure in my rela­tion­ships.

Continue read­ing “keep­ing the rage ten­der”…

it hasn't been quite a whole year yet

I still have fond mem­o­ries of the fall. It’s when the light is at it’s most neu­tral, not warmed by the sum­mer sun or cooled by it’s reflec­tion on the snow. The time of long show­ers, kit­ties being even more affec­tion­ate, and girls always find­ing the right spot to nes­tle under your neck.

On par­tic­u­lar­ly bright, chilly days, with all the leaves a flat lemon-yel­low, I can hard­ly take it all in.

cat in sunbeam

We are on this plan­et to move our cats direct­ly in the path of a sun­beam every 15 min­utes.

The sun­beams form a celes­tial cal­en­dar across my floor, slow­ly creep­ing along as they threat­en to warp the wood in my instru­ments, remind­ing me that I haven’t spent a win­ter in this room yet. I can only hope the mem­o­ries will be bet­ter this time around.

These days, I still dream of a nylon-stringed beau­ty, with warm tones and crisp bass close to the sad­dle. I won­der what she’ll feel like under my fin­gers, mahogany or rose­wood, satin or glossy. It’s a dream that nev­er seems far away cause I know it’ll hap­pen some day, so I try to cher­ish the antic­i­pa­tion.

toy plane

I’ve been feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly nos­tal­gic. When the right song comes on, I’m tak­en to the time in my life when it was the only thing I played for a week straight. I used to write so much, but late­ly I hard­ly have any­thing to say it all. That’s why I’m addict­ed to the feel­ing of feel­ing, search­ing for inspi­ra­tion, using my dreams to keep me alive.

the things we carry

I can’t fig­ure out why I’m so moody late­ly. Maybe it’s been too long since I smelled the wood of my gui­tar. Maybe it’s the fresh Autumn colours that tend to mag­ni­fy my emo­tions. Maybe I’m feel­ing over­worked, over­stim­u­lat­ed, and too rarely under­stood. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a moment to myself in what feels like weeks, with so many feel­ings of lone­li­ness amongst so many peo­ple.

Autumn stream

 

I always think of exile in times like this, and in par­tic­u­lar, a stan­za from Yevgeniy Onegin:

From all that to the heart is dear
then did I tear my heart away;
to every­one a stranger, tied by noth­ing,
I thought; lib­er­ty and peace
would serve instead of hap­pi­ness.

Luckily, I’ve been read­ing The Poisonwood Bible, which reminds me that the only prob­lems I have are first-world prob­lems, and that I’m rich in ways many will nev­er be.

I find it amaz­ing, the immen­si­ty of it, how any sin­gle per­son can be respon­si­ble for a tome of such rich sto­ry­telling, obser­va­tion, and wit. It’s the only book I’ve picked up in years, and I only start­ed read­ing to get into her head as much as pos­si­ble (and piqued by my curios­i­ty on how she could describe a sto­ry of the Belgian Congo as sexy). Unsurprisingly, her favourite char­ac­ter is the strong, faith­ful, war­rior daugh­ter. Mine is like me too; the dark, brood­ing, intel­lec­tu­al child, dizy­got­ic twin to hers. It makes me won­der if lik­ing one char­ac­ter over all oth­ers is too often an exer­cise in van­i­ty.

In the end, Onegin real­izes he was wrong about exile, that he could­n’t fill him­self with empti­ness to replace the sad­ness, some­thing he only fig­ures out when he finds some­one worth lov­ing. That’s what’s pulling me back too, keep­ing me ground­ed amongst those dark moments of untem­pered emo­tion. I car­ry the image of her smile with me, the only thing as dis­tin­guished on her face as her Spanish eyes, and the rea­son I call her Cheeks from the way the flesh pulls up to round her face. I’ve stud­ied this smile for so long that I can see it every time I close my eyes, and with that, I car­ry a strength of my own too.

Burning Twice As Bright

I seem to be writ­ing about only one thing late­ly.

In the day, there are rush­es of con­tent­ment amidst moments of clar­i­ty. Little things, like dri­ving on the high­way, feel­ing the wind ruf­fle my hair. Waking up to the fresh, cool morn­ing air that sig­nals the oncom­ing autumn. It all feels great, and for a moment, I can think of noth­ing else but how won­der­ful it all is.

The night is anoth­er sto­ry. The sky draws it’s cur­tains, leav­ing me with only haunt­ing mem­o­ries that turn vivid when the sun no longer wash­es them out. The dark­ness is only a reminder of the void she once filled with the very vibran­cy of her soul, and with­out her pres­ence to intox­i­cate me, I’m left feel­ing numb.

Jesus christ, I could go on and on.

I won­der why any­one would read all these ram­blings about love and loss. Isn’t it just the same shit over and over again? But love is the only thing I do well. Love is the only thing I know, and I can only write that which I know.

In time, I’ll have just as much to say in cel­e­bra­tion, but for now, I need to get every­thing else out of my sys­tem, stok­ing the fires of grief until I run out of fuel.