Posts tagged with "memories"

I Wanna Hold Your Hand (In The Car)

When I was young, the only affec­tion my par­ents ever showed for each oth­er was occa­sion­al­ly (maybe five times ever) hold­ing hands in the car. They nev­er kissed, nev­er hugged, nev­er said “I love you”. Aside from sit­ting down to eat din­ner, their lives were com­plete­ly sep­a­rate. They would­n’t even sleep in the same room.

Now that I have a car, hold­ing hands while dri­ving has come to define a rela­tion­ship for me. I leave my right hand on the shifter, tap­ping it to the beat of my music, but I always have this urge to hold some­one’s hand, as if it’s some strange ide­al I’ve nev­er been able to expe­ri­ence.

The Ways We Grow Up

I remem­ber Christie once telling me that she always want­ed to bring presents to some­one’s house at Christmas. We were wait­ing at the train sta­tion to Toronto, our exams fin­ished, doing exact­ly that. Carrying bags with a fon­due set, maybe a can­dle hold­er, and oth­er assort­ed mis­cel­lany for my par­ents who already had every­thing.

As a sev­en­teen-year-old with an adorable baby-face, she was rarely tak­en seri­ous­ly as a mature and respon­si­ble per­son. I could tell that hav­ing this hol­i­day tra­di­tion was her way of feel­ing like an adult. Not the gro­cery shop­ping we would do, not the lin­gerie she would wear for me, or even the act of love itself, but a fam­i­ly to go to, gifts to give, a house to stay in, a lit­tle piece of matu­ri­ty.

Honda Civic 2008 exterior

Honda Civic 2008 dashboard

Honda Civic 2008 exterior

For me, it’s this car.

Not the bills. Not the house. Not the mort­gage.

It’s being able to get any­where. It’s feel­ing these keys in my pock­et and know­ing that they’re mine. It’s dri­ving home after class when it’s dark out, blast­ing a night mix on the stereo. It’s even look­ing for a park­ing spot down­town on a Monday after­noon, or get­ting stuck in traf­fic.

It’s hav­ing all these things that I’ve nev­er had before.

How To Interpret Nothing

(I’ve been writ­ing this in my head for four years. Four years and sev­en months, to be pre­cise.)

So one last touch and then you’ll go
And we’ll pre­tend that it meant some­thing so much more
But it was vile, and it was cheap
And you are beau­ti­ful but you don’t mean a thing to me

—Death Cab for Cutie, Tiny Vessels

Ghost picture

I got this pic­ture in New Jersey. It’s the most pecu­liar size for a pho­to­graph: 3 7/16 by 4 13/16 inch­es.

For some rea­son, I see it prop­er­ly like this — land­scape ori­en­ta­tion, with the white stripe on the left — when it could just as well be rotat­ed any oth­er way. This is the bias I place on it. The way I view it.

It almost looks like a room with a wall in frame on the left, and the cam­era has metered for a flash off the wall, under­ex­pos­ing the rest of the pic­ture. There are two smears in the black­ness. Maybe an out-of-focus object, maybe a fin­ger­print on the lens.

I did­n’t take the pic­ture. Someone else did, thought it was bad, and was about to throw it out before I asked for it. Someone who took me for grant­ed. Someone who’s world I lived in but for a week, in the midst of the intense sum­mer humid­i­ty and coitus inter­rup­tus.

I’ve kept it in one of my note­books since. The edges have turned yel­low, and the cor­ners blunt from han­dling.

Every time I look at it, I like to think that I see some­thing in that grain and that noise. That some­thing’s there; I just don’t see it because there isn’t enough light to expose it, but it exists nonethe­less. Some pho­to­graph­ic kōan, where I become that which I seek.

But I know there isn’t, the way I know it was noth­ing more than pass­ing moment, a week for­got­ten, a life unchanged.

And I’ve been hap­pi­ly fool­ing myself ever since.

Residence

Ah, res­i­dence. The first year of uni­ver­si­ty, the first year away from my par­ents, and my first year in Ottawa. Also, the year I was intro­duced to Fear Factory, Dream Theater, and Refused.

I found these old pic­tures while orga­niz­ing my pic­tures fold­er. Boy, do they take me back.

Headbanging

Take a look at this pho­to, for exam­ple, where I strapped a pair of khakis to my head, and start­ed head bang­ing to Deftones — Shove It (My Own Summer). Why did I strap a pair of khakis to my head? Cause I did­n’t have long hair. Why did Pita and I decide to do this one day? I have no idea.

Dying my hair red

Washing my hair after the dye job

Alicia drying my hair

Or how about these ones, where the girls agreed to give me red chunks, back when I was obvi­ous­ly in my Tool phase. Nadine mis-read the instruc­tions, mixed the wrong chem­i­cals, and it came out all sparse.

Highlights include:

  • Failing Calculus 2 with Dave and Jarod. When we wrote the sup­ple­men­tal exam, it was five peo­ple total in the pro­gram who failed, three of whom were us. I guess I had the wrong study bud­dies. In the end, I was the only one who passed.
  • Most of the guys on the floor get­ting sued for sex­u­al harass­ment.
  • Jarod and Jono’s rave room, lit with a black­light and dis­co ball, which was some­what famous around cam­pus.
  • Constant con­flict between neigh­bors, me and Pita includ­ed, over the vol­ume of music.
  • Going to the gym with Dave, and hav­ing him spot me while I benched the bar. As in, the bar with­out weights. Afterwards, I would spot him while he benched 240. I don’t think I could have helped much.

Pita took these pho­tos, got them print­ed, and scanned them. Dated ’99. Sure they aren’t great. They’re dark. They’re grainy, tak­en with a cheap film cam­era. But they’re still unfor­get­table mem­o­ries, and it gives them a cer­tain dat­ed style. Makes me wish I had a tak­en some pic­tures myself.

Continue read­ing “Residence”…

Revealing Vulnerability

In my book tonight, I was remind­ed of the time I was sit­ting on the floor of my room and you were lying on the bed when I felt the foun­da­tion shud­der beneath me. I mapped the escape route in my head, thought of the coats cause it was the end of win­ter, and was about to grab your hand to lead us out­side if the earth shook again, threat­en­ing to bury us in three sto­ries of wood and con­crete. I told you to be ready to run upstairs on my word. How I loved you then.

And I real­ized that I can write about it until my fin­gers are sore, I can think about it into the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing, but I can’t tell you how much you hurt me.

For in doing so, I reveal my vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.