Posts tagged with "seasons"

the things we carry

I can’t fig­ure out why I’m so moody late­ly. Maybe it’s been too long since I smelled the wood of my gui­tar. Maybe it’s the fresh Autumn colours that tend to mag­ni­fy my emo­tions. Maybe I’m feel­ing over­worked, over­stim­u­lat­ed, and too rarely under­stood. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a moment to myself in what feels like weeks, with so many feel­ings of lone­li­ness amongst so many peo­ple.

Autumn stream

 

I always think of exile in times like this, and in par­tic­u­lar, a stan­za from Yevgeniy Onegin:

From all that to the heart is dear
then did I tear my heart away;
to every­one a stranger, tied by noth­ing,
I thought; lib­er­ty and peace
would serve instead of hap­pi­ness.

Luckily, I’ve been read­ing The Poisonwood Bible, which reminds me that the only prob­lems I have are first-world prob­lems, and that I’m rich in ways many will nev­er be.

I find it amaz­ing, the immen­si­ty of it, how any sin­gle per­son can be respon­si­ble for a tome of such rich sto­ry­telling, obser­va­tion, and wit. It’s the only book I’ve picked up in years, and I only start­ed read­ing to get into her head as much as pos­si­ble (and piqued by my curios­i­ty on how she could describe a sto­ry of the Belgian Congo as sexy). Unsurprisingly, her favourite char­ac­ter is the strong, faith­ful, war­rior daugh­ter. Mine is like me too; the dark, brood­ing, intel­lec­tu­al child, dizy­got­ic twin to hers. It makes me won­der if lik­ing one char­ac­ter over all oth­ers is too often an exer­cise in van­i­ty.

In the end, Onegin real­izes he was wrong about exile, that he could­n’t fill him­self with empti­ness to replace the sad­ness, some­thing he only fig­ures out when he finds some­one worth lov­ing. That’s what’s pulling me back too, keep­ing me ground­ed amongst those dark moments of untem­pered emo­tion. I car­ry the image of her smile with me, the only thing as dis­tin­guished on her face as her Spanish eyes, and the rea­son I call her Cheeks from the way the flesh pulls up to round her face. I’ve stud­ied this smile for so long that I can see it every time I close my eyes, and with that, I car­ry a strength of my own too.

i know i found the recipe for me

All I do nowa­days is dance. Not in any coor­di­nat­ed man­ner, mind you, and cer­tain­ly not in the pres­ence of any­one else.

I’m only now start­ing to real­ize how nec­es­sary it was for me to sur­vive that cru­cible last year, and how impor­tant it was for me to save myself. It has­n’t tem­pered the extremes, but they don’t last as long any­more.

Blue Mountain village at night

 

It’s com­fort­ing to know I’ve been through this before. It was­n’t all for noth­ing. I’m a lit­tle wis­er now, and I’m not going to make the same mis­takes again.

This win­ter hit us heavy once more, and like it I refuse to die.

Please make me feel alive, again, again, again

Thumbnail: Jairus and Audra

It’s been an emo­tion­al time. I’m in anti-social mode, but I force myself to get out when the oppor­tu­ni­ty comes along.

One day, we hit up a din­er around noon. I wore my flip-flops, and cruised west with the wind numb­ing my skin. My stereo gets loud­er as I accel­er­ate, and it only made me dri­ve as fast as I could to see how loud I could push Wild Gardens. For a moment, it filled me with serene bliss, and that was enough, among the steel and pave­ment and sum­mer heat in spring, to give me hope.

It’s that feel­ing I’ve been crav­ing. To be the only liv­ing boy in New York.

Thumbnail: Avocado chicken sandwich

Audra tells me I smell nice when I haven’t left the house for days. Gives me the breath-steal­ing hugs. And the fact that she’s so sen­si­tive about cross­ing my bound­aries makes her the sweet­est red­head I know. It’s hard not to believe in myself when she believes in me so well.

Continue read­ing “Please make me feel alive, again, again, again”…

Seasonal Cycle

It’s been snow­ing for three days now, the first real snow­fall of the sea­son. It’s a won­der­ful feel­ing to look out­side and see it falling1. Winter brings it’s own sort of cozi­ness, like the way sun is for sports and rain is for movies.

A lot of peo­ple don’t like the win­ter, whether it’s because they get tired shov­el­ing, they’re late from clean­ing the car, they don’t like deal­ing with the messi­ness, or they sim­ply hate being cold. To me, it’s all part and par­cel of liv­ing in the Great White North. The sum­mer brings as many unpleas­ant issues — burn­ing car seats, sti­fling heat, unavoid­able sweat. I would­n’t be able to appre­ci­ate one if it was­n’t for the oth­er.

I tend to get tired of the weath­er only at the end of each sea­son, because they seem to drag on for so long2. It’s a nev­er-end­ing cycle of enjoy­ing the new sea­son, then miss­ing the next one.

There’s this great poem by Shioh T’ao I think of when try­ing to explain this:

Spring comes, and I look at the birds;
Summer comes, and I take a bath in the stream;
Autumn comes, and I climb to the top of the moun­tain;
Winter comes, and I make the most of the sun­light for warmth.
This is how I savor the pas­sage of the sea­sons.

My ver­sion would go some­thing like this:

Spring comes, and I admire the blos­som­ing fem­i­nine beau­ty;
Summer comes, and I go for a dri­ve;
Autumn comes, and I fall in love with every­thing;
Winter comes, and I cher­ish the warmth.
This is how I savor the pas­sage of the sea­sons.

This is why I love Canada. I would­n’t want to live any­where else.

For now, I’m enjoy­ing the snow.

  1. Admittedly, it’s been a mild win­ter so far; maybe I’ll feel dif­fer­ent­ly when I have to scrape ice off my wind­shield at ‑40°C. [↩]
  2. There’s a say­ing that Canada has only two sea­sons — win­ter and con­struc­tion. [↩]

Winter Has Come

Thumbnail: Cat snowprints

Thumbnail: Cozy comforts

Cats are always curi­ous in the snow. As they sniff, the touch of their noses melt the snowflakes, and their tongues come out to lick away the mois­ture. They cau­tious­ly walk into it and inspect their paws, won­der­ing how they sud­den­ly became wet.

As for me, I’m com­fort­able at home with a warm drink and the glow of my mon­i­tors. The week has me burned out nowa­days, and the week­ends have become the only time for me to relax, the only time I can enjoy the sun­light dur­ing the short­ened win­ter days. You can always rec­og­nize a win­ter sky by its pale­ness, caus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly bright days and orange nights.

Christmas will be here soon. Vacation and trips home and fam­i­ly and the spir­it of the sea­son. Fall has come and gone. How does the time pass so quick­ly? Did I imag­ine I’d be here, at this stage in life, a year ago? Not at all.

I nev­er real­ized how much I missed the win­ter, until the snow start­ed falling.