Posts tagged with "travel"

don't add me to the weight you carry

For Christmas vaca­tion, Heather and I decid­ed to head to her home­town for a few days with her fam­i­ly. Every hol­i­day is unique­ly dif­fi­cult in its own way; this year I could tell it was hit­ting her hard­er than usu­al. She’s been my foun­da­tion since I met her, but under the strain of trav­el and the pres­sures of the par­ents, she began to crum­ble. It did­n’t help that her broth­er — who suf­fers from schiz­o­phre­nia — went miss­ing in November1.

cute girl

One of the high­lights was see­ing old fam­i­ly pho­tos, espe­cial­ly Heather at var­i­ous stages of her life.

To be help­less in the face of such hard­ship made me feel like a bur­den, per­haps cause I’ve been strug­gling to regain my sense of self-worth. The most I could do was be present and extra atten­tive to her needs as she sat in her chair each night and chewed the inside of her cheeks for com­fort.

Continue read­ing “don’t add me to the weight you car­ry”…

  1. The fact that we now know he’s home­less and liv­ing on the streets of Toronto is cold com­fort. []

ecstasy but not happiness

We left on a Thursday, trav­el­ling by train with tick­ets my uncle bought us. My younger self would have enjoyed mak­ing a mix to go with the undu­lat­ing pat­ter of tracks and the pass­ing of sea­son­al land­scapes in my win­dow. I could let songs and albums mea­sure my time spent trav­el­ing. Now I mea­sure time in hunger and pills.

Union Station Toronto

But even as I age and the sky­line grows less rec­og­niz­able, the old stomp­ing grounds remain com­fort­ing­ly famil­iar. They say every­one’s an exile in New York. Well, in Toronto — where each munic­i­pal­i­ty is a world unto itself, sep­a­rat­ed by miles of twist­ing high­ways and hours of traf­fic — every­body’s home.

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Katie + Seth — Wedding Day

The Cuban sun burned espe­cial­ly bright on the day Katie and Seth got mar­ried, but the wind kept every­one com­fort­able while unlim­it­ed drinks made sure sobri­ety was nev­er an issue. There’s some­thing to be said about the exclu­siv­i­ty of des­ti­na­tion wed­dings, cause they leave lit­tle room for strangers or acquain­tances. Only the clos­est peo­ple will com­mit to plane tick­ets and accom­mo­da­tions. The cel­e­bra­tions are all the more inti­mate for it, and I’m always glad when I have a chance to be part of the that.

You nev­er need to make a spe­cial effort to find the wildlife in Varadero; even on the resorts, birds will brave­ly snatch food at your feet, while stray cats toy with lizards and mice alike before eat­ing them. And being sur­round­ed by oth­er peo­ple on their own hol­i­days, whether they’re tan­ning on the beach or let­ting pret­ty girls cheat at lim­bo, brings a warmth to the atmos­phere that even the sun can’t pro­vide.

this must be the place

Somewhere, I have notes on fam­i­ly and names, the infamy of Cuban fare, being alone togeth­er, break­ing the seal, pass­ing Damian on the way to Havana, salty hair from salty air, rum and brown, thread­ed fin­gers, not enough euchre, every life-guard try­ing to sell me lob­ster meals, pat­terns on palms, plus 20 min­utes Cuba time, find­ing out how deep my scars run, blush­ing through my sun­burn, sand every­where and in every­thing.

beach

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libre

It’s good to have some­thing to write about again. To have friends who are com­fort­ing and kind in my most sen­si­tive moments, and just as impor­tant­ly, things to con­fide in them. Good hair days. Reasons to wear some­thing nice. Dreams with­out desire. Feelings with­out fear.

Hotel Nacional de Cuba tiles

I nev­er real­ized how much I need­ed a get away until I came home and got more done in a week than in the month before I left. Without a gui­tar or a work­load or an inter­net con­nec­tion or a rou­tine or any of my decks, detach­ing from life as I knew it was a sim­ple mat­ter. Maybe that’s why it felt like I was gone for so long, even though time passed so quick­ly. The only real con­sid­er­a­tion I ever had was how I’d like to spend each par­tic­u­lar moment, and pre­sent­ed with that kind of free­dom, I learned to tru­ly let go of every­thing else.