Posts in category "Thoughts"

29 5/12: The Uncarved

If, 5 years ago, you asked me where I’d be now, I could­n’t have even giv­en you a decent guess.

I nev­er imag­ined I’d be work­ing in graph­ic and web design at a den­tal lab. Or that my job would shift to more of a cor­po­rate lev­el, some­thing that hap­pened because I hap­pened to have the right set of skills at the right time.

Self portrait at 29 5/12

 

I nev­er imag­ined I’d meet peo­ple like Bronwen or Julie or Heather G, or Frédéric and Misun, or Jesse and Audra, or Shane and Krista.

I nev­er thought I’d dis­cov­er bands like Magneta Lane, The Knife, From Autumn to Ashes, and Muse.

I nev­er knew I’d start play­ing the ukulele. Or have an art gallery show. Or final­ly, final­ly, final­ly start learn­ing astron­o­my and own a tele­scope.

But I’m not sur­prised at where I’ve end­ed up. And who knows who I’ll meet, what I’ll do, or where I’ll be? Long ago, I decid­ed I’d stay in Ottawa until my Tai Chi teacher retired, and that’s soon com­ing. This city is com­fort­able, but it’s also just as small, and I’ve always dreamed of liv­ing in an alpha city like Hong Kong or New York or London.

It’s easy to fall into the belief that we’re in con­trol of our lives or our des­tinies. The real­i­ty is that we’re just trav­el­ing through life like leaves being car­ried by the cur­rent in a stream. There are so many things that can hap­pen along the way out of our con­trol. Connections you can’t pre­dict. Experiences you can’t even imag­ine.

I turn 30 in sev­en months, and I don’t know where I’ll be, in life, love, or home.

The Turning 30 Series

Duets

One day I’d like to pick up an instru­ment with a big­ger range (than a ukulele1), and start writ­ing my own mate­r­i­al. It’d be even bet­ter if I could form a duo with a per­son I was roman­ti­cal­ly involved with, like The Dresden Dolls or Wild Strawberries2.

Sometimes The Dresden Dolls play extend­ed ver­sions of their songs at con­certs3. The way they inter­act reveals such inti­ma­cy. In each face, you can see how they’re com­plete­ly lost to the music in those moments of dis­so­nant bliss, but they’re lost togeth­er. From body lan­guage alone, they read each oth­er for tim­ing, vol­ume, and inten­si­ty, until they feel where the oth­er is going by instinct. That kind of chem­istry is rare, and it’d be amaz­ing to be able to share that with some­one.

  1. The high‑g reen­trant is what gives the ukulele it’s dis­tinct sound, but it feels so lim­it­ing some­times. [↩]
  2. Hellllllllllooooooooo Roberta Carter-Harrison cir­ca Quiver. [↩]
  3. Okay, admit­ted­ly, Amanda’s singing isn’t any­where as good in the video as on the stu­dio ver­sion, but the near­ly five-minute extend­ed intro with Brian’s bril­liant drum solo would be worth the price of admis­sion by itself. [↩]

Predisposition

Thumbnail: My grandparents

When I was young and it was sum­mer, my mater­nal grand­par­ents would come from Hong Kong to babysit me. It was a strange time in my life, what I con­sid­er my fetal years when I don’t remem­ber learn­ing any­thing, or hav­ing any aware­ness of my own con­scious­ness.

My grand­fa­ther was a strong, intel­li­gent, lov­ing, gen­tle man, and my biggest hero. He showed me his war wounds, and taught me about states of mat­ter. I even learned the term “civ­il war” from him when he used it (in English!) one time when some old black-and-white footage of Chinese bat­tles came on the TV, but his English was­n’t great so I thought he was say­ing, “zero war”.

He was my favourite per­son in the world because he gave me the atten­tion and stim­u­la­tion I nev­er got from my par­ents.

In one of those sum­mers, I stole his cig­a­rettes, two at a time so he would­n’t notice, and hid them in the com­part­ment of a red and white chil­drens draft­ing table. It was my way of get­ting him to stop smok­ing.

One time, I heard my grand­par­ents shout­ing in the kitchen. They were fight­ing. My grand­moth­er accused him of pee­ing on the toi­let seat. It was the first time I heard them raise their voic­es at all, let alone at each oth­er. I thought it was strange because at that age I was prob­a­bly pee­ing all over the toi­let seat, and no one ever yelled at me for it, so I did­n’t under­stand why it was such a big deal.

My aunt and uncle were over because they want­ed to spend time with them, and they came to see what the com­mo­tion was about. But they just stood there, lis­ten­ing, not want­i­ng to take sides.

Eventually, my grand­fa­ther slow­ly bent at the knees, his entire body sag­ging, buried the heels of his hands in his eyes to rub out the tears, and said to my aunt and uncle with lan­guish­ing paus­es, “Sometimes, she makes me want to kill myself”.

And I knew he meant it.

I was too young to even be shocked, but for my grand­fa­ther to say some­thing like that was com­plete­ly out of char­ac­ter. He was invin­ci­ble to me. I nev­er under­stood it.

Until now.

Eventually, he went to live with my aunt and uncle for a while. They slow­ly became warmer when they saw each oth­er a few weeks lat­er. I don’t know if they ever talked about it.