It’s night, and a gentle song begins on my bedside speaker. Until this point, I’d always wondered who’d be the first to hear this song with me. Whose breath I’d feel on my body as the melody got lost in the darkness along with our inhibitions. It wasn’t a song I’d been saving, only one I never had the chance to share until I found myself here, exploring the open fields and windswept mountains and towns in between.
The stars are clear out here. A train runs through the centre a few times a day, blaring a horn as a warning to people who may be going from building to building by crossing the tracks. It’s a tiny village in a snowglobe, only the snow hasn’t come.
I haven’t been around this many people in years. I’ve long wondered what it’d be like to live this life one more time. To have rituals and theatre plans and regular friends. None of this is real, of course, but I don’t mind pretending if only for a little while.
Girlcave. Fucking awesome.
Continue reading “The willing suspension of disbelief”…
I find myself resigned to someone’s care. It’s not an easy kind of control to relinquish, but lately I trust as little as possible in the future and do my best to go along for the ride. As the old poem goes; be wise, strain the wine, or as Zorba would put it, “DON’T BE DELICATE”. I didn’t plan on living forever anyway.
On a cold night, we keep the only promise made, one of those small wonders that still make me believe. I fit somewhere between needs and wants, temporary relief and long-term side effects, class and homework, nibbled lips and bitten tongues.
The fall is holding out against the winter, trees clutching bright leaves before the chill breaks their grips. It’s wonderfully warm among such colours, and we walk in the valleys of Appalachia to take in the smell of mountain air as rustic hands around us work livestock and soil. In old Aramaic, Damascus means “a well-watered place”, a fitting name as the rain soon grows too heavy to be exploring the tiny town, population 981.
When Dave and Jenny asked me to film their wedding in Maui, there was no way I could say refuse. Soon1 I found myself in the only place in the world where Koa grows, and every tree I passed made me wonder if it would eventually be made into a ukulele or guitar. I was only there for two days, but it was worth every moment in the delightful weather, spending time with some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
The entire wedding group gathered for dinner at Mala restaurant, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the islands of Lanai and Kaho‘olawe. At this time of year, the Maui sunset passes in the blink of an eye.
I learned that there are only twelve letters in the Hawaiian alphabet (which is why so many of the words look the same to me), and the language uses Spanish vowels. Each vowel is usually pronounced by itself (Wailea is said “Why-lay-ah”). I was surprised to see most signs in both English and Japanese; it turns out there used to be a significant Japanese community in Hawaii, although most of the Japanese tourists go to see Pearl Harbor instead.
All the locals are super nice, perhaps due to the fact that tourism is one of the only industries left in Maui2; it seems like most people living there are in the service industry in some form or another3.
Continue reading “Maui Wowie”…