warm divinity

Music sounds so good. It’s like every­thing has a beat I can dance to.

Sometimes I start writ­ing an entry based on notes from a few weeks ago, but I end up dis­card­ing most of them cause I don’t feel the same way any­more. It’s like I’m con­stant­ly shed­ding skin in the words I delete.

I tend not to over-think things now. My deci­sions are based on what I want at any spe­cif­ic moment, instead on the future, or the con­se­quences, or what may hap­pen as a result. This regres­sion has been one of the most impor­tant (and dif­fi­cult) things I’ve learned to do. It feels like I’ve been going in the wrong direc­tion for 30 years, but at least I was able to fig­ure that out before much longer. Now I under­stand Picasso when he said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life­time to paint like a child.”

Pat grilling

Pat on his new grill. He’s still fig­ur­ing out the hot spots.

I don’t even prac­tice gui­tar any­more, but I’ll put on a song I’m addict­ed to and pre­tend I’m play­ing with my favourite singers for hours. It’s not help­ing me improve (which is usu­al­ly what I enjoy), but by god is it fun.

The weeks lead­ing up to my trip were full-tilt cause I could­n’t stand being by myself. It was nev­er that bad before. I even bought an iPad app that lets me watch ran­dom web­cams from around the world, just so I could have some­thing hap­pen­ing live next to me, even if it was two-thir­ty in the morn­ing. Usually it was a buf­fa­lo chips restau­rant in Florida with mus­tard table­cloths, a beach resort by the sea in Italy, or an over­head cam of a sushi chef in Tokyo1.

Nowadays, I don’t mind the soli­tude or the com­pa­ny. I’m feel­ing unwound and have set­tled into old habits; not get­ting enough sleep, eat­ing at the wrong times, nev­er going out. The main dif­fer­ence is that I get so much less of ____ nowa­days, which means I feel so much more alone, but I’m strong enough to be okay with that now.

The days are bright. Like a boy, I find it hard to con­cen­trate on work when the sun fills the house with warm light.

  1. This is how I learn that sushi chefs puree wasabi using only a chef’s knife and a great deal of patience. [↩]

kitty considerations

It’s been four months since Leonard died. I remem­ber going to bed that night, con­stant­ly turn­ing over my pil­low to find a dry spot, sob­bing so much I could­n’t fall asleep.

The necrop­sy showed that he had a mas­sive liv­er and kid­ney infec­tion. My vet excused his lan­guage and said, “Shit hap­pens” when I asked (per­haps with a quiver in my voice) what I could have done to pre­vent it.

Soon after, he sent me a card offer­ing his con­do­lences, and said it was a plea­sure deal­ing with some­one who cares so much. It was prob­a­bly the best thing any­one could have done to assuage any feel­ings of guilt. That fact that Leonard had a stub tail with no signs of scar­ring makes me sus­pect that he was the runt of the lit­ter, like­ly born with a weak con­sti­tu­tion, but that does­n’t stop me from always feel­ing like I could have done more.

He was always so affec­tion­ate, almost to the point of being over­ly so. Every morn­ing he’d rub his nose on my face until I stirred, which would be extreme­ly aggra­vat­ing if it weren’t one of the most seraph­ic ways to be wok­en up.

I remem­ber him sleep­ing with me one bright after­noon. Dolly decid­ed to nes­tle her­self in the crook of my arm under the blan­ket, and Leonard soon joined us, though he decid­ed to curl up on my neck instead. It was the per­fect nap con­fig­u­ra­tion.

I’m still glad I had him, as short as our time was. It sad­dens me most to think that I nev­er got to know what he’d be like as a mature cat, whether he’d keep his play­ful­ness and extro­ver­sion into adult­hood. At the very least, Heather G and Sergey, Aaron and Trolley, Darren and ____ all got to meet him before he died.

Leonard at the Humane Society

I took this pic­ture of his Humane Society pro­file before head­ing over to meet him. They named him, “Elvis”.

I’ve been check­ing the Humane Society web­site for male kit­tens avail­able for adop­tion ever since. I recent­ly found one with the right details and a goofy face too, but I don’t think I’m ready for anoth­er cat yet. I’m not sure I could han­dle it if the next one hap­pened to die so sud­den­ly as well. But I know that soon enough I’ll be itch­ing to adopt again, and that the idea of hav­ing anoth­er cat in my life will pre­vail over any wor­ries.

the art of longing's over

So the great affair is over but who­ev­er would have guessed
It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unim­pressed

On a sleep­less night in Paris, I came upon the sud­den real­iza­tion that the last thing I should be think­ing of was a per­son I had­n’t spo­ken to in more than half a year.

It brought to mind some­thing Jason told me once, about a pol­i­cy his life-coach has for his ses­sions (which are very for­ward-focused): if you bring up some­thing neg­a­tive from the past three times, the life-coach would end the work­ing rela­tion­ship cause it’s in indi­ca­tion that you’re hold­ing on to some­thing that keeps you from mov­ing for­ward.

So there’s three things you can do:

  • change the sit­u­a­tion
  • change your­self
  • noth­ing (which implies that you stop bring­ing it up, because you’re not doing any­thing to improve the sit­u­a­tion)

For so long, hope meant that I’d been try­ing to change the sit­u­a­tion. And when I final­ly, final­ly, final­ly under­stood the futil­i­ty of it all, I knew I had to change myself, and come to terms with what I did­n’t seem capa­ble of accept­ing. Being in anoth­er coun­try, sur­round­ed by an indul­gent, hedo­nis­tic cul­ture and filled to the brim with hap­pi­ness, was exact­ly what I need­ed to gal­va­nize myself into that change, and end things on my terms.

I’ve been set­tling back into my reg­u­lar life, and I don’t feel much of any­thing now, except free. Like I’m final­ly in con­trol, above water, instead of tread­ing it.

round my hometown memories are fresh

It’s good to be home.

By the end of my jour­ney, I start­ed long­ing for the com­fort of my house and slip­pers, as I imag­ined being splayed out on the couch, watch­ing a movie with a bowl of ice cream in my hands. It’s been more than a week since I’ve been back, and I’ve yet to do this. It’s hard to pull myself out of the old habit of being pro­duc­tive. Sometimes I need to be wait­ing at a ter­mi­nal in New York with a three-hour lay­over to be able to sit down and enjoy a film.1

large bud

It’s dan­ger­ous to go alone! Take this.

At the same time, I’ve nev­er been more indul­gent, my lat­est vice being those bags of York Peppermint Patties. I fig­ured out that life is too short and I should be enjoy­ing myself when I was sip­ping café allongé on a patio with Karin on a beau­ti­ful Paris day, and I could final­ly appre­ci­ate this fact when talk­ing to Dennis over our lager on an Edinburgh after­noon.

This is prob­a­bly why I don’t feel over­stim­u­lat­ed, even though I’ve been going full-tilt for the last two months. Darren came over as part of his sab­bat­i­cal, and we did the things I rarely find an excuse to do myself, like going shoe shop­ping or order­ing sushi. Last week I staked him $20 and watched him win $600 when he hit his num­ber at the roulette table, five min­utes after we stepped in the casi­no. He gave me back a per­cent­age of my win­nings, and he spent the night play­ing black­jack while I bet on the elec­tron­ic hors­es. We did­n’t end up win­ning much after that, but we both left up.

Lisa even took us danc­ing2, where I learned that the entire appeal of strobe lights is their abil­i­ty to make every­thing look like a Michael Bay movie filmed in 24p. It turns out this is also a great way to do some peo­ple-watch­ing, although you start to get depressed when you see a pair of kids from their respec­tive groups pick­ing a fight with each oth­er cause they’re drunk, then mak­ing up and play­ing grab-ass on the dance floor. Ironically, I end­ed up being the one sober enough to dri­ve home.

sushi platters

From left to right: Yummy roll (deep fried crab, avo­ca­do, salmon, white fish — served warm), spicy salmon piz­za, eel spe­cial roll, green drag­on roll (avo­ca­do on tem­pu­ra shrimp and cucum­ber), shrimp tem­pu­ra roll, and Philadelphia roll.

Last time I checked, there were over 5000 unread items in my feed read­er, and tweets from over a week ago in my Twitter time­line. It’s strange to be so dis­con­nect­ed from life as I knew it. I haven’t writ­ten any­thing in as long either, which is a very long time for me. I con­sid­ered delet­ing this blog, then tak­ing a month off instead, then decid­ed I’d write when I felt like it. The thing is, I always feel like writ­ing, but late­ly this urge has giv­en way to being pro­duc­tive in oth­er ways or hav­ing fun. It’s like I’m final­ly on the Taoist path, dis­cov­er­ing that my trip has changed me more than I first thought.

  1. I end­ed up watch­ing sev­en on my trav­els, which is prob­a­bly more than all of last year):
    • Sunshine — good as long as you can get over one real­ly big, real­ly stu­pid plot ele­ment. Which I could­n’t, so on the whole this movie sucked, even though it had some of the best direct­ing I’ve ever seen in my life.
    • Network — Unbelievably ahead of it’s time in terms of media com­men­tary
    • The Last Picture Show — a great com­ing-of-age movie direct­ed by that guy who played Dr. Melfi’s psy­chi­a­trist on the Sopranos, and Cybill Shepherd in her debut role
    • Ladder 49 — I don’t trust Pat’s taste in movies any­more
    • Kung Fu Panda — they were pret­ty good at the Chinese details
    • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World — a fun movie over­all, the best part being that it’s set in Toronto. Also, very dis­ap­point­ed at how much of a sell­out Bryan Lee O’Malley is for chang­ing the end­ing based on audi­ence reac­tions at test screen­ings
    • To Kill a Mockingbird — I want­ed to be a lawyer after see­ing this

    [↩]

  2. Which for me is pret­ty much just sway­ing back and forth while being mes­mer­ized by the gui­tar play­ers. [↩]

Scotland, Day 10: Edinburgh

We watched Rory McIlroy take the most impres­sive lead in US Open his­to­ry to win the 2011 title, and when you see these golf super­stars mak­ing sat­is­fy­ing­ly effort­less shots, you long for the same kind of feel­ing that can only come from some­thing as pri­mal as hit­ting a ball. It’s been years since I held a club in my hand, but I was itch­ing to play and we head­ed to a dri­ving range, tak­ing it easy on my last day in Scotland.

I’m going home a dif­fer­ent per­son. Not a dras­tic change, but a refine­ment of the growth I’ve had in the last year, and a gal­va­niza­tion of the spir­it. This trip has taught me that life is full of hap­pi­ness, and my mem­o­ries of Europe will be filled with the peo­ple and places that have made the last three weeks a rich and won­der­ful expe­ri­ence.

Barney in the garden

Barney likes to roll around in the grass, and some­times he comes back in with pieces of foliage in his fur. He even has a shed with a duvet in it that allows him to sleep com­fort­ably out­side, even when it’s dark and the tem­per­a­ture drops. The back­yard pro­vides a tremen­dous amount of pri­va­cy, thanks to all the lush green­ery.

Continue read­ing “Scotland, Day 10: Edinburgh”…