Posts in category "Daily Life"

To Speak, To Dream

Thumbnail: Infinity candle holder

It’s on nights like this that I feel espe­cial­ly lone­ly.

I spent the last two hours look­ing for an image that would express my mood, but this was the best I could come up with. When I went out­side, to see if the street lights would offer me more, I passed by open win­dows, each one filled with a dif­fer­ent coloured light. It made me won­der what the peo­ple were doing, who they were with, what mood they were in.

It’s been a day alone. A day with­out con­tact. A day of rain and grey­ness, and liv­ing vic­ar­i­ous­ly at Robson Arms.

So here I sit in the dark, with my apple and hon­ey swirl pie and Ovaltine, writ­ing because I haven’t said enough today, list­ing to songs of love and hate. Feeling like an old soul.

Wondering tonight if I’ll dream, or sleep sound­ly, or dream with­out remem­ber­ing.

Home Free

Thumbnail: Darren outside
Thumbnail: Tazo Berryblossom white tea
Thumbnail: Sausages, egg, and toast
Thumbnail: Dexter
Thumbnail: Bubble tea parlour
Thumbnail: Bubble tea
Thumbnail: Cigars
Thumbnail: Korean soup
Thumbnail: Dexter the cat in window
Thumbnail: Mall people
Thumbnail: Tempura roll
Thumbnail: Teriyaki beef
Thumbnail: Sliced orange
 

I left when the sun was set­ting. Along the way, the road stretched out infi­nite­ly before me, as if to say that I can always get away, and there is always more to go. The tree line danced and waved across the hori­zon, even­tu­al­ly dis­ap­pear­ing with the sun. Then the lines of red and white in each direc­tion guid­ed me all the way to Darren’s house.

In it are lit­tle things from the house I grew up in — some can­dles here, some cab­i­nets there — that my par­ents did­n’t want after the divorce. So strange to see innocu­ous objects from my child­hood in a dif­fer­ent set­ting.

It was the first time we’ve been com­plete­ly sober togeth­er since we were kids. No alco­hol, no weed.

I found out a cou­ple things I would­n’t have known oth­er­wise:

  • My dad start­ed dat­ing some­one. He is cur­rent­ly sin­gle again.
  • He has a dance floor at his house and a nice car. This is typ­i­cal of my dad, who loves his toys.
  • My moth­er is still inse­cure.
  • My par­ents still see each oth­er, but not alone. The cur­rent social rule among the group of par­ents, is that you can’t invite one to a par­ty with­out invit­ing the oth­er.

A week­end of sweet indul­gence, late nights, and inti­mate con­ver­sa­tion. No one under­stands my rela­tion­ships the way Darren does, because we both share these quixot­ic ideas about love. It was so com­fort­ing to be able to express myself on these things with­out hav­ing to explain my under­ly­ing feel­ings, as if some­one could tru­ly under­stand me, espe­cial­ly impor­tant in this cur­rent phase of my life.

It made me real­ize that home isn’t where the par­ents are, some­thing I used to believe1. It’s an idea.

A com­fort­ing place you can go to get away, where you’re com­plete­ly accept­ed for who you are.

  1. I’m not sure exact­ly when I stopped believ­ing this, but it was prob­a­bly some­where between the time my par­ents got divorced and I stopped talk­ing to my mom. [↩]

A Change of Flowers

When I left, the flow­ers on my kitchen table looked like this:

Thumbnail: Dead flowers

When I got back, to my sur­prise, they looked like this:

Thumbnail: Fresh flowers

She made the bou­quet her­self — hand-picked the flow­ers, chose the colours, even made sure it was sym­met­ri­cal, know­ing my odd habits1 — and left them there to greet me from my jour­ney home.

I nev­er ask for these things but she does them any­way.

Which is exact­ly what makes them so sig­nif­i­cant.

  1. I tend to straight­en her neck­laces, her san­dal straps, the curls of her hair, the draw-strings in her hoodie/yoga pants… [↩]

Road Trip

Two in one day…you know it’s seri­ous.

I’m dri­ving out to see Darren for the week­end. He’s five hours away, and it’ll be my first trip out of the city in the car. My car.

There’s a cer­tain sat­is­fac­tion to fill­ing my trunk with odds and ends — tri­pod, san­dals, snacks — that I could­n’t have car­ried on a Greyhound bus. Got my GPS and a full tank of gas.

I had Summer Sun by Ellen ten Damme play­ing here.

I can’t wait to dri­ve with the win­dows down while the sun is set­ting along the hori­zon, Summer Sun play­ing on the stereo. To be going some­where by myself.

Free.

Killed my top rat­ed playlist at work. Even have all the songs burned to sev­er­al CDs for the trip. My head is filled with lyrics. I may also begin my audio­book of Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.

I’m going through some hyper­ac­tive eupho­ria again, this con­tra­dic­to­ry feel­ing of the scary and excit­ing unknown. The best part about hang­ing out with Darren is that each of us under­stands exact­ly how the oth­er feels, even though we may not under­stand it in our­selves. Something which is espe­cial­ly impor­tant right now, even though I’m pret­ty sure I’ll be okay.

I just need to get away for a while.

A Bittersweet Indulgence

Our bod­ies burn like flames in an oven, so we kick off the cov­ers. I slip my arm around her waist and press her body close to mine. She holds my hand to her chest, fin­gers wrapped around fin­gers, legs wrapped around legs.

The morn­ing light comes in blue and soft and sub­tle through the win­dow, and the stars begin to fade.

I want to hold her like this under a tree in the sum­mer and pass the time in her com­pa­ny, alive to every moment we’re togeth­er. I want to hold her like this when the cars and streets are buried under snow out­side, so we may tru­ly know what it is to be warm and com­fort­able. I want to run my fin­ger along the soft­ness of her face, so I may learn every land­mark and fea­ture, and nev­er for­get. I want to read to her my favourite books on lazy Sunday after­noons, so I can take her to where they’ve tak­en me. I want to feel her breath against my skin, the breath that gives her life, and me joy. I want to wake up to find she’s not away in anoth­er bed, but next to me, lost in slum­ber, for there can be no oth­er such sim­ple hap­pi­ness.

This is where I’m per­fect­ly con­tent, lost in a moment when time has stopped and noth­ing else mat­ters.

But I know it won’t last for­ev­er. She’ll soon be gone. I won’t be the one to do these things with her, the one to love her the way she was meant to be loved, the one to love her as deeply as she deserves. There’s no use in think­ing about it now.

I’ve fall­en for this muse in my arms, totale­ment, ten­drement, trag­ique­ment.

The one who inspires me to cre­ate won­der­ful things, to make beau­ty as I see it in her, so that oth­ers may share in this feel­ing. If I had a mil­lion words to describe her grace, it still would­n’t be enough.

I could be sad, but I’d rather be hap­py instead.

So as the sun begins to rise, I indulge myself a lit­tle longer, and hold her clos­er before drift­ing off to sleep.