Posts tagged with "love"

moment by moment by moment

It’s turned into a month of impro­vi­sa­tion. Even my reg­u­lar events are being resched­uled, so I’ve lost the only anchors I have to a nor­mal week. It’s hard to make plans when I don’t know how I’ll feel from one day to the next. Harder when I don’t know the next chance I’ll have to spend with the peo­ple who love me the way I need to be loved. I can tell it’s been too long when I start to dwell on my inse­cu­ri­ties, and the days feel more and more heavy.

I’m let­ting this peri­od be a way for me to ease away from alter­nat­ing between iso­la­tion and anx­ious cling­ing. Being busy is forc­ing me to pay atten­tion to the cur­rent moment. To be present with the per­son I’m with, but more impor­tant­ly, with myself. Otherwise, I can’t han­dle the thought of how much stim­u­la­tion I’m fac­ing.

cat in slippers

Slippers, because she needs to find ways to be more com­fort­able in her day-to-day life.

Dolly’s been sleep­ing on my duvet again, an old habit of hers. It’s a sign that fall is here, as she prefers to swad­dle in the dark when it gets too cold by the win­dow. She also recent­ly decid­ed to start sleep­ing on my pil­low1, and I can feel her purring through my skull, a new and unex­pect­ed devel­op­ment in our rela­tion­ship. I love the fact that I’m still learn­ing things about her, that she’s still capa­ble of change as she approach­es a decade with me. As always, I have the fall to thank.

backyard garden

A lot of pro­gres­sive trance has been in the mix dur­ing all this upheaval. It’s a genre I’ve nev­er pur­pose­ly explored until recent­ly. I’ve been try­ing to fig­ure out how to make my own cov­ers inter­est­ing by adding lots of dynam­ic ele­ments and mak­ing sure phras­es aren’t used too often. These DJs do the exact oppo­site with lots of rep­e­ti­tion and min­i­mal ele­ments, yet some­how make each song a jour­ney in itself. It’s a pleas­ant puz­zle to try to solve. Now I have many new addic­tions that have been per­fect for night time rides and count­ing yel­low high­way lines.

I won­der if these songs will end up remind­ing me of a time I’m con­stant­ly being bro­ken down so I can heal prop­er­ly. The old ones don’t mean the same thing any­more.

  1. Although I can’t fig­ure out how she fits on it by her­self to begin with. [↩]

This is a picture I didn't take

Of you, arms up and chest out, body crash­ing against the surf. Top pulled back into place with each wave, bot­toms adjust­ed as need­ed. A splash of rain on a flower soon to bur­geon.

In that instance I became aware of what was hap­pen­ing in myself. I could look at it clear­ly, and saw it as it was because it was already there, part of my expe­ri­ence in that moment, for bet­ter or for worse. I allowed myself to be exact­ly as I was with­out fear or shame. Detached yet present. Mindful to how I’ve longed to feel this for some­one again, and how I’ve nev­er ful­ly sur­ren­dered myself to it until now. A rea­son for the lyrics in the awk­ward smiles, the molto crescen­do in every inci­den­tal touch.

This is a pic­ture I did­n’t take of you, a mem­o­ry from which I can’t seem to look away. A moment I car­ry with me to remind myself that I can love again.

thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes

That lit­tle fur­row was there because you weren’t. That’s why you nev­er saw it, of course. You must think I hate you cause it was the only thing I could­n’t help her with myself. But I could nev­er hate you. You gave her what she want­ed. In the end, that’s all I real­ly want­ed too.

I knew it was seri­ous when I saw your umbrel­la under her bed, back when she hid those kinds of things for my sake. You nev­er real­ized she only took it as an excuse to see you again (not because she was par­tic­u­lar­ly scared of get­ting her meri­no socks wet), the same way you nev­er real­ized how easy it all was for you. That was a sign that you were the right one. I knew it before she did.

If only there was a bit of mys­tery left in you. Instead, I had you pegged by the sec­ond night, and all I can tell peo­ple is that you’re a nice guy, when I want to say you’re an artist, a lover, a fight­er, a wor­thy rival, a slay­er of inse­cu­ri­ties, a break­er of bar­ri­ers, a tes­ta­ment to testos­terone, a hero among men. She deserves more than the painful­ly pedes­tri­an life you’ve giv­en her, but I know she’s had enough of heart­break to think that nor­mal is hard enough to come by. And so I’ve learned that a per­son­’s hap­pi­ness is all that mat­ters, not the dreams you have for them. I guess it’s hard to give up those dreams when you’re part of them your­self.

I want to say I’m leav­ing for some noble rea­son of great impor­tance, but it’s real­ly because there’s noth­ing left for me in this lit­tle town. I used to believe I could escape; even­tu­al­ly I real­ized you can’t out­run your mem­o­ries. Now I’m just try­ing to fig­ure out where I belong. She was all I knew for so long, and now that life is gone.

And so I must tread care­ful­ly with new lovers; it’s impos­si­ble for me to tell my sto­ry with­out that part of my past. That’s why I won­der what she told you about me, about us. About los­ing feel­ing in her face and let­ters you would­n’t know how to write. If she inten­tion­al­ly left any­thing out, or whether our time was even worth men­tion­ing. But the past is still the past, and that’s the only rea­son I can write a let­ter now to the man who saved her with­out ever know­ing it.

zhui long

There’s noth­ing in this world you can’t turn into hero­in.

—Get Him to the Greek

At our last draft, Steph asked me what was new. It was weeks since we played, but noth­ing came to mind, and it felt strange to have no updates at all. It was only a few months ago that things fell apart. Things had been chang­ing quick­ly ever since.

And then, all of a sud­den, sta­bil­i­ty.

the hearth

The hearth.

Meanwhile, I’ve picked up an obses­sion with sort­ing my Magic cards. Darren came by a few weeks ago and he gave me his col­lec­tion, which we both start­ed around high-school. I have about 8000 cards now, ordered by rar­i­ty, colour, block, and alpha­bet­i­cal­ly, which took me the greater part of a week. There’s no deny­ing how sat­is­fy­ing it is to have a neat and orga­nized set, where I can quick­ly find a card instead of going through ran­dom hand­fuls.

I also start­ed watch­ing Cops, sea­sons 20–24, non-stop. A strange addic­tion1 for a real­i­ty TV show that’s no doubt biased in favour of law enforce­ment and against low-income cit­i­zens, but not glo­ri­fied with a nar­ra­tor, a sound­track, or any mon­e­tary incen­tives. After watch­ing the same episodes a few times, I feel like I have some inti­mate insight into the peo­ple who choose to break the law, and those who make careers out of stop­ping them.

They’re signs that I’m a glut­ton now, hav­ing to lose myself in some­thing, whether it’s being pro­duc­tive or social or hap­py.

Love used to be my drug of choice, but nowa­days it’s any­thing I can get.

  1. I used to see an episode here and there when I was a kid, but it was nev­er with any fre­quen­cy, and I haven’t seen one in years. I have no idea why I find it so fas­ci­nat­ing now. [↩]

i miss

try­ing new foods with my Uncle Joe and the fas­ci­na­tion I used to have for Six Feet Under and being able to sleep more than four con­tin­u­ous hours and gui­tar lessons and the sound girls make when you squeeze them just right and the idea of camp­ing but not the actu­al act and remem­ber­ing how to play Sunny Road and Trolley and Steph already and snow and peo­ple-watch­ing when tak­ing the bus and long-term rela­tion­ships and

two girls and a baby

these kind of moments before we all par­take and

the smell of rain in Paris and make­outs and know­ing what to say to peo­ple when they ask me how I’m doing and being led by the hand to the bed­room and being called Jeffy Bear and hav­ing a rea­son to wear Classic by Banana Republic and get­ting real­ly excit­ed and being pur­sued by some­one I’m not try­ing to avoid and the time in my life before all this med­ica­tion and hav­ing some­one I could call my best friend and cud­dling and walks and old /b/ and Bruce Springstein before he went rock and no one I should­n’t and hav­ing a Tai Chi teacher and

bums like this

lit­tle bums like this and

know­ing how to play piano and pounc­ing on sur­vivors with Dave and Tyler and hav­ing a sta­ble source of income and being part of her life and hav­ing her in mine and Hawaiian sun­sets and find­ing sales for clothes that fit me and play­ing songs for Antje and the inti­ma­cy of oral and simul­ta­ne­ous orgasms and sex, obvi­ous­ly and hav­ing some­one to spoil and new episodes of Reno 911 and host­ing big par­ties and the way Leonard would sleep on my neck.