tides

I’ve been look­ing for new inspi­ra­tion and lis­ten­ing to as much new music as I can find recent­ly. I haven’t dared go into much of my old music. I sup­pose that means I’m not yet com­plete­ly over some­thing or oth­er. Thankfully, peo­ple send me new songs all the time (this gem cour­tesy of Mansour Chow), and often it keeps me going until the next addic­tion.

I haven’t picked up my gui­tar late­ly either. For the first time, the break has been self-imposed, though out of a desire to pur­sue oth­er inter­ests more than any­thing else. Also pos­si­bly the fact that I lost two months of growth when I chipped my thumb­nail, and I’m not inter­est­ed in learn­ing any­thing that requires a thumbpick right now. Ever since my dad gave me Larissa as a birth­day present two years ago, I haven’t able to put her down until now. I’m hop­ing it’ll reset a few bad habits, and give me more focus when I start again.

Practicing gui­tar has been the one tan­gi­ble way in which I could tell I was improv­ing. Now that I’m tak­ing a break, I’ve been faced with an unset­tling sense of stag­nan­cy, cause I’ve always held self-improve­ment as one of my main rea­sons for liv­ing. But I’ve also real­ized that it’s not always pos­si­ble to con­tin­u­al­ly improve, so I’m try­ing to be hap­py with who I am at the moment, and accept that it’s nat­ur­al to go through cycles of growth and stag­nan­cy, pain and heal­ing, frailty and strength.

merry x-mas

Julia asked me how long I’d been spend­ing Christmas at their house. We fig­ured out this was the sev­enth year, cause I have pic­tures of Ginger from 2005, before she died. I can’t say I remem­ber each Christmas dis­tinct­ly, aside from a few extra faces and occa­sion­al make­outs that cause some to stand out more than oth­ers. It’s strange to think that I’ve known Braiden for more than half his life. I per­pet­u­al­ly think of him as being sev­en.

The Rogers'

The kids are get­ting old­er, no longer up at 5am and anx­ious­ly wait­ing by the presents until they’re allowed to wake up the par­ents. The idea of Santa has long been dis­pelled. Braiden’s giv­en up being a cen­tre for goalie, lost his post-sea­son scruff cut, and at 13 is only an inch short­er than me. Nicole’s done most of her grow­ing and will be legal in four months, but at the age where she’s still some­one’s daugh­ter instead of her own woman. Julia’s sport­ing a new voice and pierc­ing, but has kept all the sass that comes with being the mid­dle child.

Continue read­ing “mer­ry x‑mas”…

finishing the game

It’s been an aim­less win­ter. Some days full of mean­ing, oth­ers pass­ing with­out so much as a moment worth remem­ber­ing. I’ve learned to cher­ish every storm cause each one could be your last. Who knows when you’ll get to walk on trails cut through tan­gled branch­es with the snow as wet and thick and heavy as this again?

long driveway with snow

The hol­i­days snuck up on me. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out where all the time has gone and how best to use what’s left. The only dec­o­rat­ing I’ve done for the sea­son is a real pine wreath (gen­er­ous­ly giv­en to me by Steph) hung on the office door. A small act that does­n’t seem like much com­pared to the glo­ri­ous ceil­ing-scrap­ing trees in the hous­es of my friends and neigh­bours, but cer­tain­ly more than I’ve done in the recent years. It’s an easy con­ces­sion to make against my grow­ing dis­taste for the com­mer­cial­ized Christmas cul­ture when my room is filled with the scent of sap, scat­tered pine nee­dles, and oth­er reminders of life.

car-in-snow

The ever-faith­ful steed.

My exis­tence is defined by what I have left to do, and the list grows ever short­er. I live week-by-week, through cycles of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and play, try­ing to meet each need in turn. It’s always a del­i­cate bal­ance to be man­ag­ing when so much in life is out of your con­trol.

As for the short term, I’m off to Shirley’s for Christmas and my annu­al dose of fam­i­ly. It’ll be a com­plete break from my reg­u­lar life of sin­gle-serv­ing meals and nev­er being around more than one per­son at a time. I imag­ine we’ll spend most of the days eat­ing fin­ger foods and watch­ing real­i­ty TV among the ram­bunc­tious flus­ter of her kids. I always look for­ward to see­ing how they’re car­ry­ing their grown-up voic­es and how their styles have changed.

hot chocolate

This is the time of year I’m most scared of being left with­out plans1, but recent­ly I haven’t had enough time alone. It’s left me feel­ing numb and tired and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

Friends still make the best dis­trac­tions. It’s easy to hide from any­thing when you’re shar­ing a blan­ket and some ear­ly episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

  1. Also why I usu­al­ly make a trip to Toronto. [↩]

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Trapped in NYC

A few weeks ago, an anony­mous per­son very thought­ful­ly sent me a track called NYC by Brolin. This per­son must know me quite well, cause the song is to my taste exact­ly. Not only that, but I’d been mean­ing to make a short film about my trip to New York (as well as the extend­ed stay due to Hurricane Sandy), and Brolin’s min­i­mal­is­tic sound space and ghost­ly vocals gave me an atmos­phere of warmth and won­der that matched my footage per­fect­ly.

Personally, I don’t think I could ever cre­ate any­thing and name it NYC. It’s a city with too much depth and com­plex­i­ty to try encap­su­lat­ing in a verse or song or mov­ing image, then tie it up with three sim­ple let­ters. I can’t wait to go back again some day to cap­ture as much as I can.