There are so many infinite reasons I love Montreal, the total solar eclipse being one of them. Collective awe being another, and the waft of smoke from sausages grilling in Jeanne-Mance, on a perfect spring summer day, wedged between new friends and old friends. I love the walking, the students in throngs, lopsided houses, big lazy bulldogs, The Word’s irreplaceable book displays. The spring here is dirty and dusty, but even still, I love it […]
It is not like I ever stopped trying. But how is it possible to ignore the small flashes that are the thuds of my heart? The momentary realizations that I might be alone again, and possibly forever? And yet, so relieving would this freedom feel, so familiarly good. I want to stop trying. I want something, and somebody profound. Profoundly. Yes, the every day moments, but transfigured, transformed. To what extent can we accept our […]
Is it this strange weather? The knowing of an end? The tragedy that befalls the underserving, so horrible that it is infinite? For days pressure builds behind my eyes, and the skin around my eyebrows flake and disintegrate. Windows of my home rattle, the temperature drops by thirty degrees. On my way to the airport, in the dim-lighted metro, a violinist and accordionist play “Dark Eyes” and an old man walking past me croons the […]
Around two weeks ago I had a very special weekend, brimming and bursting with friendship and places to go. Friday night I hastily cleaned my home and welcomed, ten, twenty, thirty(!) people friends into my apartment for a musical devotional. People came in late, left early, and at around 9 I went to open the door to Jacob, who was famished and as soft as ever. Guitars, piano, violin, clarinet, drums, voices upon voices. Later […]
When I was coming back from the tip of Manhattan, balancing myself in the train, an older woman nudged me through my coat and gestured at the open seat next to her. I smiled into her eyes and sat next to her silently, briefly, likely for the last time. I was going home to you, an utterance only months old, up near the East Village. Those brown bricked towers, your window-less living room, the bedroom […]
The worst thing is, love is not enough. But that’s an awful way to start a story, the story I’ve been wanting to write. It is about a law school seminar, unknown weather, a student (girl) who wants to have sex with another student (guy), and his pet. For almost a year now this tale has weaved in and out of my mind like a soft needle over a long piece of fabric, never to […]
A day like today, a night in the day, my heart turns into itself to observe something harder. Here I am, missing my love, missing my parents, missing what I am missing out on, missing that brighter word. Across the weeks do I still remember, our arms interlocking and that sweet smile the older woman gifted us, when you sang to me along the October pavement. I am learning—finally, only just—that my mind is not […]
“You’re so close to finding love, you’re the literal embodiment of love for so many around you and I feel like it’s so close for you now. / Your perseverance through every small and big heartbreak is honestly everything.”
How will I remember, this summer where life death knocked at our doors and flower bushes were plenty colourful and friends would pass me by on the street like familiar ghost souls? How will I remember, this evening where I sat in an empty theatre listening to Elvis crooning loneliness and hugged myself to fear and cried at the weight confusion of family journeys under the wind gray moon? How will I remember, this dreaming […]
To practice seeing and believing in myself in a loving light is pivotal, and ultimately enjoyable. Just because I (we) ethically refuse certain versions of the future does not mean others will materially pursue it less. A break-up feels unique when it is fresh, and more universal in hindsight. My mother does not have to be my role model; disagreeing with her not mean denying her. Singleness is no tragedy or drama, but seems difficult […]
