A note.

Blogging elsewhere now. I feel like I should say something a little deeper because this blog has been part of my life for about two years now. Unfortunately at this point in time I can't think of anything. So, there it is. Ciao.

People.

I’m glad you like New York. Really.  But what am I supposed to say to you when you tell me about it? Probably just that I thought I wouldn’t be able to compete against skyscrapers, paper dreams and being so far away from home. And so I called you difficult, mocked video calling and let you go.

Fast forward a few months and you can’t wait to go back. You wait out your turn like you always did but the city is always on your mind. I’m confused as to whether I want to see you or not but you leave me with little choice and for that I am eternally grateful.

Thank you for always calling long distance but we’re going to be very far apart from now on and that is probably that.

I’m glad though, that your smile twitched just a little bit when I walked through the door. I was pretty nervous too. 

I managed, somehow, before the evening ended to perceive the hopelessness that needled through her veins. Underneath all that rouge. I winced and turned away. Recollections for another lifetime.

 She grew up and married some great, glorified green passport holder and even after they moved away she would send me pictures of people she’d be scandalized by and say ‘Look at how they’re sitting, we don’t even sit like that and we’re married. Married. Can you imagine?’ And I’d always feel a little disappointed. I look at her life and wonder when and how she erected such flimsy boundaries and that no wonder people’s lives come crashing down so easily. The fences that separate their black and white are rarely made of more than paper and a whisper of fear. No wonder they fall apart.

Apparently letter writing is a lost art and for some reason, I’ll probably end up writing him one, lick the envelope and send it off. Whether I’ll be doing this for him or myself requires further self examination and I’d argue, at this point, that I’m done for a while. 

You try too hard not to try at all. I think we’d probably fight too much, fall too fast and eventually just fade out. Forget. 

He needs glasses to read the menu now and it always breaks my heart a little to think of him as an old man.

He told me he’d call back and when he didn’t I realized that he was not to be waited around for and that really truly I had accepted that a while ago. So maybe I’ve grown up a little bit.

The air in this city is too bloodlusty for winter to stay long anyway.

 And as for that last book. Well Mr Kundera, I’m never going to finish a book of yours if you keep making your characters fall in love because I already know it’s not going to end well.  I hope your Tereza found her happiness though.

Your eyebrow piercing left a mark.  I didn’t even notice it until someone else pointed it out because you carry yourself with such purposefulness it’s like you planned the whole thing. Even though you never plan anything. Not colour scheme, not the boys you fall for and not what you’ll be doing tomorrow. You’re going to do so well though and I’m going to miss you the most. 

 She pulls up in my driveway every afternoon. I have never seen her lips move once while teaching me how to drive. Because, like so many other things this is something I’ve had to relearn. And so I pausestumblejolt my way down an unforgiving road, narrowly avoid a few cars, break a couple of traffic lights and eventually figure it out. Refigure it out.

Eccentric is what comes to mind. She wears her rings with such flair and sets me straight every single time.  She throws exactly what I’m supposed to make a living off of back in my face and reminds me why I do it. Much love.

Turns out he actually did know this city like the back of his hand and God, I eny him. The first night I got back, I picked up a black marker and wrote ‘Don’t’ on my left hand. When it faded away, I wrote it again. And again. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t be stupid all over again.

 My mother looked at me over the edge of the menu and said ‘You will never want a normal life will you?’  I knew she was thinking of engagements and grandchildren and part time work and for the first time ever, I hesitated before saying ‘Probably not.’

He comes to mind every now and then. An old man who, when I was learning how to crawl, looked over the edge of his newspaper and told my father I was going to have plenty of affairs. I don’t think he meant I was going to be unfaithful once married because well, you can maybe tell that from a walk but certainly not from a crawl. He probably just meant that there were going to be plenty of boys hanging around. Nobody in the family talked about it much but when they did they said he had a gift. They’d never call him a prophet because God forbid that would be blasphemy and if this wrinkled, rich old bastard didn’t deserve a place in heaven, even if just for predicting a future whore, then who did? To this day, I see the fear in my father’s eyes and, brat that I am, rub his nose in it and then do my best to look completely innocent. When the old man breathed his last, I didn’t go to the funeral and later on when everybody was busy weeping I spat on his grave.

And of course, that  reminds me of the uncle who used to sneak into the kitchen and stir scotch into his chai just so he could stand being around the rest of the family for an hour or two. But that’s a story for another day.

‘I met a prostitute who used to be a Grammarian.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah I’m serious. She needed a ride and she ended up telling me about where she went to school.’

‘So then what?’

‘So then I bought her an ice cream cone and gave her a hug’

‘Of course’