Posts in category "Daily Life"

diner

Sometimes we go peo­ple-watch­ing at the Elgin Street Diner at two in the morn­ing. Not just cause it’s one of the only places still open, but because it tends to be too busy before then. It’s hard to point some­one out or steal a glance with­out being noticed when the tables are all occu­pied.

We try to fig­ure out rela­tion­ships from the way peo­ple sit, sto­ries from the state of their shoes. Mostly it’s young drunks, try­ing to set­tle their stom­achs with some grease before head­ing home. Frat boys from the bars, clus­ters of girls in tight dress­es from the clubs. The ones who’ve had too much are easy to spot: when they aren’t mak­ing a bee­line to the bath­room, they’re star­ing at their plates, won­der­ing how much warn­ing they’ll need for the next run.

But every so often is an enig­ma, like four men in car­go shorts who aren’t young enough to be sin­gle, but not old enough to be divorced. The cor­po­rate logos on their golf shirts belie the no-upkeep, don’t-care-any­more look that comes with father­hood. It’s a breed rarely seen out beyond nine on a Thursday night, and one that looks espe­cial­ly out of place at a time when the only cars on the road are taxis and cruis­ers.

I don’t judge, but I sure do won­der.

Elgin Street Diner

This is our way of escap­ing the reg­u­lar lives we lead, before catch­ing up on enough sleep to beat morn­ing rush-hour on the way home, and back to anoth­er day of real­i­ty. No one told us about the roles we had to play as adults, or the respon­si­bil­i­ties that come with it. To com­bat signs of aging, share onion-bacon pou­tine, choco­late-banana milk­shakes, and a slice of peanut-but­ter cake every now and then. Just an hour here is plen­ty, as long as it’s done on a reg­u­lar basis.

When we’re fend­ing off exhaus­tion to spend one more moment in each oth­er’s com­pa­ny, shar­ing food we should­n’t eat and words we should­n’t say, I know I’m the only one she wants to be with there. It’s more proof to me than the things she writes and the rit­u­als we share. So many peo­ple take that kind of unspo­ken faith for grant­ed, but it’s still new to me, and I’m learn­ing how much I need to be spe­cial to some­one.

200 miles just to learn

The only time Rob and I ever had a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion was the night before Aaron’s wed­ding, when we were the last ones up out of the grooms­men stay­ing at my house. Aside from that, I was­n’t sure if I’ve ever con­nect­ed with him on a per­son­al lev­el; I’ve been dis­cov­er­ing how dif­fer­ent­ly some behave when oth­ers are around, and with Aaron or Mel in the mix, he’s got even more to prove than usu­al.

But I could always tell that under­neath the brash and indomitable impres­sion he gives the world is a wis­dom not shared by many. It was exact­ly that kind of aware­ness I was look­ing to be in the com­pa­ny of, so I took the chance to vis­it when it would be just the two of us. Even though we’re so dif­fer­ent in so many ways, it turns out the things we have in com­mon are more sig­nif­i­cant, and I dis­cov­ered he’s exact­ly the kind of friend I need right now.

photo montage

The man-cave most­ly fea­tures posters of com­ic book heroes and car­toon fig­urines, the only pic­tures being found in a lit­tle frame next to the com­put­er. It was strange to see two of myself in there next to one of him suck­ing back a beer with Trevor. That was back when I rocked my hair with a part down the mid­dle and occa­sion­al­ly some sol­id colour, though I don’t remem­ber any­thing about it oth­er­wise — a strange anom­aly in a per­son with a pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Lost the hood­ie, still have the coat, won’t be caught wear­ing those glass­es again.

The only oth­er peo­ple who have a pic­ture of me in their homes are Aaron and Alex. I always take those pho­tographs as a telling sign of your rela­tion­ship with some­one. It means they care enough to want you around even when you’re not there. I guess that’s why each of them have more pho­tos of me than both my par­ents com­bined, and why Rob calls me broth­er.

changing dressings

The nurse comes every day to change the dress­ings and keep an eye out for infec­tion. Aside from the list­ing hob­ble, you’d nev­er have an idea of the pun­ish­ment this body has borne under­neath, until a wince when the tube drags against his shirt. That and the fact that there isn’t a bot­tle of Blue in his hand. Otherwise, the acci­dent did­n’t change Rob at all. He’s still the hap­py-go-lucky, take-it-on-the-chin kind of guy. To him, the world has always been sim­ple, an equa­tion that can be solved with mus­cle and mass, and he car­ries both answers in spades.

Under any oth­er cir­cum­stance, I’d hate him. He’s obnox­ious, stub­born, and proud; a type I don’t get along with. But I’m also on his good side, which means he’s loy­al and lov­ing unlike any oth­er, and he shows this every time he squeezes the breath out of my chest until I’m weak and com­ing up for air. Through him, I’m learn­ing to under­stand and accept the peo­ple I’d oth­er­wise turn away from.

let us have our tongues

It’s not that I don’t want to write about how things are slow­ly chang­ing, I just nev­er seem to have the chance. Nowadays, my pri­or­i­ties are sur­vival else­where, and the writ­ten word isn’t the out­let I need any­more.

Besides, every time I try to get a thought on a page, I get lost in the scope. My think­ing con­stant­ly goes fur­ther and fur­ther, as my under­stand­ing of the world moves beyond the things that affect only me. It’s made me a more patient, com­pas­sion­ate, and empa­thet­ic per­son. But by the time I fig­ure some­thing out, the feel­ing is gone, and words are no longer rel­e­vant.

slider

I’ve been try­ing to leave my cam­era at home too, a way of forc­ing myself to savour each expe­ri­ence. It’s a del­i­cate bal­ance between that and my ever-present need to doc­u­ment every­thing. I’m dis­cov­er­ing that mem­o­ries aren’t as vivid as pho­tographs, but they live longer in the implic­it part of the mind, and both are food to an intro­vert nonethe­less.

Days with­out a way to cap­ture the world around me are nev­er easy. I want to take pic­tures of sun­light and sum­mer and sweat and sex, but life has­n’t been so much about events as the reg­u­lar­i­ty. The moments I share every day with the peo­ple I need, or the time between when I’m recharg­ing and heal­ing. The things worth appre­ci­at­ing are more fre­quent, but all the more fleet­ing too.

not today

Summer has been over­cast, if not rainy. It’s great. I can keep every win­dow open, and the whole day feels like it’s a dew-soaked morn­ing on the verge of a sun­rise. It’s enough to make me believe that the real sum­mer is nev­er com­ing.

girl playing cello

These days I’m still recov­er­ing, still learn­ing to treat myself with com­pas­sion. Sometimes it’s a blur­ry line between that and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. I don’t know how I feel about parts of my life, parts I nev­er ques­tioned before, and it’s a strange uncer­tain­ty to be car­ry­ing.

That means I don’t know how to act around most peo­ple, some­thing I haven’t had trou­ble with since I was a kid. I’ve been avoid­ing most social con­tact, while spend­ing time with the few peo­ple who know me well enough to hurt me. Sometimes it’s like walk­ing on a tightrope, wait­ing to fall off. Everything is an exer­cise in vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Luckily, they’re the right peo­ple to help me through as well, the right peo­ple to put my trust into. This is how I learn to love again.

pugs

I’m learn­ing to be self­ish too, espe­cial­ly at a time like this. I’ve real­ized how impor­tant it is to be oblig­ed to myself, instead of con­stant­ly putting aside my feel­ings for the sake of oth­ers. That means under­stand­ing what I need out of my rela­tion­ships, instead of try­ing to make them what I thought they should be. Sometimes that also means mak­ing sure I spend enough time alone.

this must be the place

Somewhere, I have notes on fam­i­ly and names, the infamy of Cuban fare, being alone togeth­er, break­ing the seal, pass­ing Damian on the way to Havana, salty hair from salty air, rum and brown, thread­ed fin­gers, not enough euchre, every life-guard try­ing to sell me lob­ster meals, pat­terns on palms, plus 20 min­utes Cuba time, find­ing out how deep my scars run, blush­ing through my sun­burn, sand every­where and in every­thing.

beach

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