Posts in category "Daily Life"

The Little Man Must Go On

Live accord­ing to the sea­sons
In the town where I was born
Things have got­ta have a rea­son
The sun don’t come before the dawn

(Thanks again, Antje.)

How did I lose anoth­er week? Another week of that snow smell and gui­tar lessons and Nordique red­heads I nev­er asked out again. Lost to the trap­pings of life. So much has hap­pened, and yet noth­ing has changed, though things will be dif­fer­ent soon enough. And while I wish I could say that I had more to say about it all, I don’t.

teas in spoons
tea-table
tea served

Over some ancient moon­light white tea, Heather G asked how my belief in Taoism was going. It made me real­ize I had­n’t thought about it in a while, which is exact­ly the point. I’ve been try­ing not to try to act, and just been act­ing. Doing my best not to over-think things. Taking it one call, one con­ver­sa­tion, one day, one week at a time.

don't let the past remind us of what we are not now

It’s been anoth­er crazy week. Between the appoint­ments and the hang­outs, I haven’t had a night to myself.

One thing I wish I had more time to appre­ci­ate is the weath­er. The most recent bliz­zard draped the city in snow wet and heavy, and all I want to do now is go out and shoot with a nice piece of glass that goes wider than f/2.8. I keep promis­ing myself I’ll do it next snow­fall, but life always seems to get in the way.

baby playing peekaboo

The over­stim­u­la­tion has left me with my guard down, and I’m stuck in my mem­o­ries again. Left remem­ber­ing old con­ver­sa­tions, nights lost to the sens­es, and my regret at not men­tion­ing how much I liked those nails done up in white and nude.

It’s not my fault. Honest. I get pulled into it in the most inno­cent ways. That song will come over the tin­ny speak­ers in the pro­duce depart­ment when I’m pick­ing out toma­toes. Or I’ll be on the 12 home, going through ran­dom songs in my col­lec­tion to try out my new mon­i­tors, when I catch some­one shar­ing what I always saved for us.

I’m start­ing to under­stand how help­less I am to change the past, but at the very least, I can change myself. And that’s often good enough nowa­days.

moments between cities

The dri­ve home is always eas­i­er. Not because I’m leav­ing, but because it’s when I can catch my breath after some relent­less debauch­ery I excuse as being for a spe­cial occa­sion.

I’m at an age where my body will feel this over the next two days, spent recov­er­ing phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Luckily, exhaus­tion numbs the sens­es, and makes the time pass quick­er on those long stretch­es where dis­tance is mea­sured in hours.

driving at night sepia

Cousins, British humour, heart­break, shots, glut­tony, rum­ble strips, but nev­er enough time.

The 401 is the kind of high­way that Springsteen used to write about on his heart­land folk albums, the only ones I ever liked. The songs were nev­er about a road itself, but about all the lust and hate and change that hap­pened between two peo­ple when they trav­elled along that road.

In the same way, dri­ving the 401 has always been when I have a chance to find myself. It often leaves me feel­ing like a dif­fer­ent per­son when I get to where I’m going.

perpetual eve

This day is the same every year. The streets are dead and filled with slush, the stores all closed. No mat­ter where I am, it seems peo­ple are look­ing for a chan­nel on TV to watch a cor­po­rate-spon­sored count­down, and I always feel alone even though I’m sur­round­ed by friends.

If it’s the same every year, it’s strange that my mem­o­ries of New Year’s Eve are so mixed. Jocks harass­ing me on the bus. Bundling up in big coats to share petit coro­nas out­side. Panic attacks. Blonds and red­heads. Rich foods and too much drink. And some­how the peo­ple I love and the peo­ple I hate end up at the same par­ties.

Sometimes it reminds me too much of my child­hood. My fam­i­ly host­ed the same count­down par­ty every year that became the only real time we spent with oth­er peo­ple, and the only time we ever caught up with our “friends”. Numbers would be shout­ed in uni­son, cham­pagne would be toast­ed, noth­ing would change. An emp­ty rit­u­al for emp­ty peo­ple. Maybe that’s why I nev­er feel like I belong any­where on this day. It’s like I’m wait­ing to feel what every­one else around me is feel­ing when the ball drops.

it is impossible to stop the motion of snow at night

I got what I want­ed for Christmas.

Piles of it. Sheets falling from the sky, melt­ing instant­ly on your wind­shield, forc­ing the traf­fic to 20kph on the high­way. So much that you have to brush off your car if you leave it parked for more than a minute, but the sky glows orange for you to savour every sec­ond.

house in the snow

Not that I cel­e­brate Christmas, but I do enjoy the trap­pings of the sea­son. The lights and the dec­o­ra­tions and the spir­it and the snow. I’m just sick of the con­sumerism. It seems per­verse to see all this fan­cy paper wrapped around a box only to be torn off and thrown away. To see peo­ple scram­bling to buy things just to have some­thing to give. I’ve got it just right, where I don’t exchange gifts with any of my friends cause I don’t want either side to feel oblig­ed. I’d rather give a present when the time is right for both peo­ple, and save my mon­ey so it’s some­thing spe­cial every now and then. The last thing I want is to be a scrooge, but the old­er I get, the more I feel like that’s what I’m turn­ing into.

The hol­i­days are the only time I tru­ly veg out. I watch more TV on Christmas day than in the entire year com­bined, marathon reruns of Dog the Bounty Hunter and Parking Wars and Cake Boss. Shows that are fas­ci­nat­ing in short bursts with the right com­pa­ny and snacks, but nev­er good enough to make a point to watch on my own.

trees and night

I was lucky enough to spend some qual­i­ty time with a cheap elec­tric gui­tar. The body was dusty, the strings were dirty, and the into­na­tion left some­thing to be desired, but the action had me feel­ing like all the time I’ve spent with a stiff steel-string acoustic has paid off. About a month ago I put down a $200 deposit on the nylon-string beau­ty I’ve always want­ed (with the promise that I’d get my deposit back if I did­n’t like it) so I could wrap my arms around the body, run my hands across the glossy fin­ish, and feel the fret­board beneath my fin­gers. Guitar has been my only ther­a­py late­ly. The only thing I can throw myself into and for­get about every­thing else, the only part of myself that I can tan­gi­bly tell is improv­ing, some­thing I need to be feel­ing right now.

I’ve nev­er been this uncer­tain about the future, and it’s freak­ing me out. I already had a feel­ing 2012 was going to be a new start. My projects would be done by the end of the year, I’d have a nice lit­tle break, and I’d be ready to begin again. Now I’m forced into that real­i­ty, and life is soon going to be very dif­fer­ent. I don’t know if I’ll be able to han­dle it, but I sus­pect I won’t have much of a choice.