Posts tagged with "music"

this passage through the flames

This one has been hit­ting me par­tic­u­lar­ly hard late­ly, a wind­ing, dis­so­nant pulse that nev­er fails to draw me to a dark and calm­ing place. Gojira’s albums are filled with aggres­sive, intense pas­sages that explore themes of trau­ma, mys­ti­cism, and death, but none of their songs feel as heavy as this, no doubt influ­enced by the pass­ing of the Duplantier matri­arch1. Yet through­out, as with most of Joseph’s lyrics, is a sense of hope and opti­mism in the face of the chaos that con­stant­ly threat­ens to drown us all.

I’m at a point in my life — again — where it’s good to know that music can still bring me to tears. I long believed SNRIs had robbed me of the abil­i­ty to cry in those small moments between life-chang­ing crises.

It’s a solace I glad­ly accept when sleep is a rose that rarely graces my gar­den nowa­days. Even when I stay up beyond the point of exhaus­tion, I begin to stir short­ly after pass­ing out with thoughts swim­ming in my head, anx­ious and ter­ri­fied before I real­ize I’m already awake again.

And when I can’t con­cen­trate on the things that used to bring me joy, when all I can do is sit in the black­ness of my room, drunk, stoned, and sedat­ed, I’ll take any com­fort I can get.

  1. Mother of broth­ers Joe and Mario Duplantier, the lead vocal­ist / rhythm gui­tarist and drum­mer. []

the moon represents my heart

My aunts and uncles are well aware of the con­flict I have with my par­ents. They’ve since become a sur­ro­gate fam­i­ly; the ones I call on Mother’s and Father’s Day, the peo­ple I vis­it when I go to Toronto.

With every cheque they send, my thank yous feel less and less mean­ing­ful. It’s dif­fi­cult to show how much I appre­ci­ate their love and accep­tance and sup­port when they’re well off and tend to have every­thing they could ever want or need.

One of them men­tioned Teresa Teng as a favourite singer dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion last year, and I real­ized a cov­er of one of her songs would be a befit­ting ges­ture. The arts were tight­ly con­trolled by the Chinese gov­ern­ment for 30 years and any song heard on the radio was either patri­ot­ic or polit­i­cal, until The Moon Represents My Heart was released in the late 1970s. It marked an impor­tant cul­tur­al shift when emo­tions were con­sid­ered puerile or bour­geois, and became a favourite among many gen­er­a­tions.

This song in par­tic­u­lar is well-known by peo­ple from all three China’s (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan), as Teresa Teng’s pop­u­lar­i­ty extend­ed beyond both bor­ders and dialects. She became a com­fort­ing famil­iar­i­ty when I was grow­ing up, as I would catch her voice float­ing in the back­ground no mat­ter where I went or who I vis­it­ed.

Continue read­ing “the moon rep­re­sents my heart”…

so soft with scars

It’s hard to imag­ine what life will be like when I’m still try­ing to sur­vive from one day to the next. I’ve nev­er been more dis­con­nect­ed with real­i­ty, but dis­tance is what I need. At first it was days; now weeks have start­ed blend­ing togeth­er. Stretches of time feel short­er as they get longer. It’s been more than a month since I took a step out­side, and about as long since I’ve seen any­one but Heather. I can’t even remem­ber the last time I answered my phone or made a call.

Every day, it feels like I’m falling deep­er into a hole I can’t seem to escape as I slip fur­ther away from myself. I used to enjoy being inspired and cre­ative, but some­where along the way I stopped dream­ing. The lines in my face tell me my body has paid a price of it’s own. It’s left me unsure of who I’ll become; if only I was­n’t so fond of the per­son I used to be.

My new ther­a­pist is shock­ing­ly young com­pared to the man who retired and forced me to look for some­one new. Every few weeks, we care­ful­ly explore the thoughts I keep tucked away in the back of my mind. Heather often serves as wit­ness, to under­stand what I’ve been through and have to re-expe­ri­ence. It’s exhaust­ing to go into a past that pains me so much, but impor­tant work that I hate and need and want all at once.

girl and cat

Not quite two years ago, her stay with me began as refuge from an abu­sive part­ner. She was a frag­ile girl back then; pan­icky dur­ing heavy winds, blind to her own bur­geon­ing nubil­i­ty, uncom­fort­able around any­one else for more than a few hours at a time. Fortunately, my inse­cu­ri­ty hap­pened to man­i­fest itself as a need to take care of oth­ers, and I found both val­i­da­tion and hap­pi­ness when I had the chance with some­one so deserv­ing. It’s hard to believe how quick­ly our roles have reversed. Now I’m the depen­dent, a posi­tion I have a hard­er time accept­ing than she does1, and one I’ll like­ly have for the rest of my life.

Through my strug­gle, I’ve seen her grow into a con­fi­dent young woman who knows how to cook a steak medi­um-rare (even though she’s a veg­an), enjoys every chance to exert her sex­u­al­i­ty, and often under­stands more about my med­ica­tion than the doc­tors who pre­scribe it. I thought I knew what love was, but every day her unwa­ver­ing patience shows me how much deep­er it goes.

Guild Wars 2 character with Eternity

Totally not com­pen­sat­ing.

This is the face I wear most often as of late, while explor­ing a world large enough for me to get lost in. I can set goals at my own pace, whether they’re sim­ple ones that leave me sat­is­fied enough to sleep, or com­plex, long-term ones that help me feel accom­plished enough to do big­ger things. Every day, I’m giv­en the chance to be kind, gen­er­ous, and pos­i­tive to vir­tu­al strangers, while keep­ing a dis­tance from the real world. I even start­ed a lit­tle guild with my friends, and we recent­ly claimed the hall which we’ll call our home; even if I’m not emo­tion­al­ly avail­able to them, this is how they stop by and spend time with me.

It’s hard not to hate myself when my issues are pre­vent­ing me from being the per­son I want to be. I’m in a rush to get bet­ter, when time to heal is what I need most. Heather reminds me that the suf­fer­ing I’ve been through is the rea­son she feels under­stood and safe. I tell myself that this time is just a chap­ter in the book of my life — a stop on the way to who I am — and that there’s more left to write.

  1. I keep remind­ing myself: she knows what she wants, and what’s best for her. []

steps into strides

It’s nice to be at a point where I don’t suf­fer sim­ply by the act of exist­ing. With my head above water, I can pur­sue a sense of hap­pi­ness instead of con­stant­ly decid­ing whether it’s worth going on.

But I have to admit that the depth of my strug­gle is what gave me the tools to thrive now. When I was try­ing to sur­vive the most dif­fi­cult times, I learned that I could lim­it the effect of life’s inher­ent insta­bil­i­ties by being in bet­ter con­trol of myself. Through my jour­ney with social injus­tice1, I learned how to empathize with peo­ple and under­stand their expe­ri­ences. From hav­ing lost all my most fun­da­men­tal emo­tion­al bonds, I learned to be a more patient friend and deep­er lover.

It feels like I’ve been strug­gling in ado­les­cence, and am now tran­si­tion­ing to the next major phase, one that will involve as much heal­ing as grow­ing. That means I need to prac­tice using these tools, cause know­ing how to be a bet­ter per­son isn’t enough by itself; time and per­se­ver­ance are just as impor­tant for a per­son with so much dam­age.

There are still bad days, moments of weak­ness, and ground­less inse­cu­ri­ties, but they’re get­ting less fre­quent and less intense, and I have more time than I ever thought I’d have. As long as I’m on the right path, each step I take toward find­ing my stride will get me to where I want to go.

  1. And with the sup­port of Shawn and Tiana mak­ing me feel val­i­dat­ed about my feel­ings every step of the way. []

so we beat on

Life at the com­ic book shop con­tin­ues to be the Empire Records fan­ta­sy every­one dreams it to be. Maybe that’s why some­one walks in every shift to hand in a resume. Even peo­ple who have no inten­tion of look­ing for a job ask if there are any open­ings as soon as they see the merch catered to every genre of geek.

The fact that there are only a dozen among us means the crew is tight. I get to play back-cash DJ and turn up the elec­tron­i­ca that’s come to define this peri­od of recov­ery. Still, there are days when the com­put­er breaks down on a night when I’m run­ning a tour­na­ment by myself, I have to do all the pair­ings man­u­al­ly, and get­ting home to a hot show­er is the purest relief.

dog in snow

Having a steady stream of plans mixed in with work means I’m con­stant­ly wak­ing up to an alarm. It’s wear­ing me down, but my need for stim­u­la­tion is out­weigh­ing my need for sleep. For now, at least.

I don’t write any­more cause I get my val­i­da­tion through peo­ple. The right ones set aside time for me, lis­ten as much as they speak, and don’t treat me any dif­fer­ent­ly cause of my past. I haven’t felt the need to sort out my thoughts — one of the main rea­sons I used to write — as much as accept myself. It’s a mat­ter of patience at this point, and weath­er­ing the rough peri­ods.

Arcade Fire — Reflektor tour

Arcade Fire on their Reflektor tour, fea­tur­ing Stephen Harper as tam­bourine-play­ing box head.

That means I’m still learn­ing how to take care of myself. Still com­ing to terms with the fact that love is so rarely clean or tidy or in our con­trol, but real­iz­ing that’s okay. Still try­ing to believe that I should­n’t be embar­rassed of any­thing I’ve suf­fered. Still fig­ur­ing out my idea of hap­pi­ness, what’s mean­ing­ful and what’s pos­si­ble.