Posts tagged with "music"

nothing's burning

I feel so dis­con­nect­ed from the world late­ly. It’s not like I don’t have friends who care so much that they make me feel unwor­thy of the atten­tion. I just don’t relate to any­one around me. People with their lives on rails when I feel as uncer­tain as ever. It’s like I haven’t joined their world yet, this world of sta­bil­i­ty and reg­u­lar­i­ty, where every­thing just falls into place.

shadows outside a pub

Do pix­ie cuts ever make up for smok­er’s hands?

I watch the movies that used to stir the depths of my emo­tions, lis­ten to the songs that would grab my heart and clench to the beat in hopes that I’ll feel some­thing more than this. Every night, every snow­fall, every pho­to­graph is telling me that some­thing needs to change, and I’m left try­ing to fig­ure out what or when or how it’s going to hap­pen.

this is interlude

I was­n’t ready for the snow. I pic­tured myself at home with noth­ing bet­ter to do than sleep in as it was falling, but instead I’m too busy to enjoy it. Now there’s noth­ing left of the snow that has fall­en, cause fate seems to be con­spir­ing with the weath­er to make this Christmas any­thing but white.

Unfortunately, this is when I need to be buried under snow. I’m con­vinced the win­ter will wash every­thing away, and I’ll emerge clean again.

boy plays with man

I don’t know what to do with myself late­ly. Ever since Will was born, catch-up time with ____ has been a call he gives me every now and then between meth­ods of pub­lic trans­porta­tion as he makes his way home from work. I just want to talk to some­one and have their undi­vid­ed atten­tion, cause it’s the old habits I miss the most, the late nights when you’d rather stay in some­one’s com­pa­ny than sleep. But the only peo­ple who under­stand are also the peo­ple with their own lives, and too often I’m left to my own devices.

As a result, I’ve been feel­ing vul­ner­a­ble. I hold myself back from reach­ing out to the wrong arms, the ones who touch my face and drag their nails across my skin, the ones with famil­iar smells and com­fort­ing weak­ness­es, the ones who appre­ci­ate the things I want to be appre­ci­at­ed for, but none of whom can give me what I need.

pictionary

Dennis’s socks.

I’m sure I’d feel as lone­ly as ever if I was­n’t so over-stim­u­lat­ed and ready to be by myself for a while. This prob­a­bly won’t hap­pen until some point dur­ing the hol­i­days, and even then, I had plans on catch­ing up on per­son­al projects and chores I can only bring myself to do once a year1. Maybe this is adults mean when talk about how time pass­es more quick­ly when you’re old­er.

I’m in between places now, unsure of where I am or where I’m head­ed. But at the very least, I know what I’ve been through and what’s behind me.

  1. i.e. Cleaning the floor­boards and walls of the house. [↩]

leave the bottle

I need­ed to feel a dif­fer­ent pain. I need­ed to reassert myself. I need­ed to change my body from the one he knew.

I’ve been killing it. Nights that bleed into morn­ing, pots of cof­fee, retail ther­a­py, English ales that drink like meals. The blood does­n’t faze me any­more. Instead of slow­ly slip­ping down the spi­ral, I’ve decid­ed to fall all the way so I can climb back up.

Sometimes you have to tear your­self down before you can start rebuild­ing.

the charms of our idle dreary days

Don’t have much to say late­ly. Sometimes I get stuck at the title.

I’ve been hold­ing off on start­ing var­i­ous class­es cause I’m not quite into my reg­u­lar pace of life. I’m still rid­ing the crests of over-stim­u­la­tion from my trip, not yet ready to be rou­tine­ly see­ing peo­ple. Consequently, this means I lose sense of time, week­ly class­es once being my anchor points for cer­tain days of the week.

Ottawa balanced art sculptures/Sculptures en Pierre Équilibrée

 

I always look for­ward to grey and drea­ry days, when it’s the per­fect excuse to stay inside and just tin­ker on the gui­tar.

I nev­er feel lone­ly any­more. I’m too com­fy in the house, too occu­pied with this sense of hedo­nism, too busy pour­ing myself into my projects, too spoiled by life I’m liv­ing, too blessed by the cards I was dealt. Sometimes I end up park­ing my car at a strange angle one could nev­er hope to repli­cate, and I’m sure this is how my neigh­bours can tell I haven’t been out in more than a week.

Hintonburger

The Hintonburger: a six ounce hand­made local beef pat­ty with bacon, cheese, sig­na­ture bar­beque sauce, and fuck yeah.

All I ever want­ed was a lit­tle bit of peace. Now that I’ve found it, I’ve stopped think­ing about the future. Right now is good enough.

warm divinity

Music sounds so good. It’s like every­thing has a beat I can dance to.

Sometimes I start writ­ing an entry based on notes from a few weeks ago, but I end up dis­card­ing most of them cause I don’t feel the same way any­more. It’s like I’m con­stant­ly shed­ding skin in the words I delete.

I tend not to over-think things now. My deci­sions are based on what I want at any spe­cif­ic moment, instead on the future, or the con­se­quences, or what may hap­pen as a result. This regres­sion has been one of the most impor­tant (and dif­fi­cult) things I’ve learned to do. It feels like I’ve been going in the wrong direc­tion for 30 years, but at least I was able to fig­ure that out before much longer. Now I under­stand Picasso when he said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life­time to paint like a child.”

Pat grilling

Pat on his new grill. He’s still fig­ur­ing out the hot spots.

I don’t even prac­tice gui­tar any­more, but I’ll put on a song I’m addict­ed to and pre­tend I’m play­ing with my favourite singers for hours. It’s not help­ing me improve (which is usu­al­ly what I enjoy), but by god is it fun.

The weeks lead­ing up to my trip were full-tilt cause I could­n’t stand being by myself. It was nev­er that bad before. I even bought an iPad app that lets me watch ran­dom web­cams from around the world, just so I could have some­thing hap­pen­ing live next to me, even if it was two-thir­ty in the morn­ing. Usually it was a buf­fa­lo chips restau­rant in Florida with mus­tard table­cloths, a beach resort by the sea in Italy, or an over­head cam of a sushi chef in Tokyo1.

Nowadays, I don’t mind the soli­tude or the com­pa­ny. I’m feel­ing unwound and have set­tled into old habits; not get­ting enough sleep, eat­ing at the wrong times, nev­er going out. The main dif­fer­ence is that I get so much less of ____ nowa­days, which means I feel so much more alone, but I’m strong enough to be okay with that now.

The days are bright. Like a boy, I find it hard to con­cen­trate on work when the sun fills the house with warm light.

  1. This is how I learn that sushi chefs puree wasabi using only a chef’s knife and a great deal of patience. [↩]