Ongoing Adventures in Semi-Conciousness

 It's amazing how a certain some thing along the way, a curve in the road, the look of a particular stretch of highway can initiate a memory. 

I was driving from work to the Eaton Centre today. And then back. And I took a certain route that took me straight through the neighborhood my dad used to work in, right past the K-8 inner-city public school where he spent the better part of my life working - 16 years. And I instantly remembered something I hadn't thought of in years. Maybe once or twice a year we would ask my dad, "Can I come to school with you," and he'd say yes. I don't remember him ever saying no. But we didn't go that much. So somehow, my brother and I asked little enough that it wasn't something that ever needed to be discussed much. Little enough that it was a special day for sure. My dad would pull us out of school, and we'd get to get up with him when it was still dark out. He would make us a piece of toast or two while he drank his coffee. Not like Mom who would make toast but also cereal or eggo's and oh my god, my mom let us eat pizza pops for breakfast. And then we'd take the GO train together into the city. Sometimes people knew him and I thought that was great. This was back in the day when teachers had to wear cufflinks and ties. He'd leave you alone in the woodshop while he went and grabbed whatever group of unruly 12 and 13 year olds he was expanding the polytechnical skills of. And I'd get nervous, because I would be the center of attention if only for a moment. But the kids were always super nice to me, and they liked my dad. And you got to have a special lunch together at the Berkley Bistro, just the two of you. And there it was, still in business.

The drive between Trafalgar Road in Oakville and the studio where I work, or vice versa. Specifically in rush hour traffic. Certain landmarks... I can't help but be reminded of a certain day or a certain moment during that year where I made the commute, my first year and my current job, my first career. Because that was where i was when I had a conversation on the phone, or had heard a serious piece of news on the radio, or been stuck in this stretch for a very long time that day the produce truck rolled heading eastbound. I think about how scared I was some days, or how angry. How late it was some nights, or how early. It was during that first year after mom had passed away, when I was still trying to figure out how to be independent and really just how to operate. It makes me think of the apartment I shared with Justin on Speers Road, big and bright and very high up. With the fireplace and bright yellow walls. It makes me remember that while we weren't right for eachother, Justin did an incredible job of creating a home for me. And that while there are some days and nights that year that I'd really rather not remember, we stayed as long as we did because we had great friends and a great view.

In a week or so, I'll get up at 6 (if I have not been too excited to sleep) and have a shower. And I'll have a slightly-bigger-than-normal purse all packed with my passport and my cell phone and a folder with laser printed maps and emails, with flight numbers and phone numbers. I'll make a big mug of tea and tidy up my place one last time before settling into the drivers seat and heading up Bathurst, west on Eglinton, up the Allen, and up and around the top of the city, and down down down all the way to the Buffalo Airport to pick up Eric. I'll listen to RadioLab and not the CBC because it's a weekday and much earlier than I normally listen to the CBC and thusly NOT The Current and something far less compelling. 

Conversely, if I'm ever out super late at night and then drive home in Toronto, I catch CBC radio one Overnight, I smile to myself and get the feeling of driving down to the Buffalo airport between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. having not slept a wink.

And I'll be nervous and excited and maybe, even literally, squeal. Because I'll get to be loved like crazy for a few days or a week or a few weeks or whatever, and have hugs, because while Eric and I have a lot going for us, hugs are not in our 'strengths' column. And because I have never had fun in my life the way that I do when I'm with him, and it's his birthday. But as I see all the familiar landmarks I'll inevitably be remembering other drives. The skyway bridge over Hamilton. The ugly shipwreck. That restaurant (greek or something) that I've always been thinking of trying, you know, the one right on the lake off the 420. And I'll be thinking about times when the bag I was bringing was much bigger, times when it's been very snowy, very risky, very late, or a 2:00 a.m. time with my gullet full of cauterized stitches and my purse full of percocet. But these drives, when I'm excited and nervous and have been counting the hours for days and just ready to burst - these are probably some of my most happy times. Sometimes I'm bringing someone home to share my world with, to contaminate my normal with extraordinary. Sometimes I'm off to visit somewhere I've never been, or somewhere that's become as familiar and comfortable to me as a cottage, where someone who cares for me immensely will take the greatest of care of me. Before we meet the possibilities are endless, and I enjoy the feeling of not worrying about how much time we have left.

But that drive home... while it is occasionally unpleasant (about 33% of the time) it reminds me of something else altogether. August has always been a really funny month for me. It's my favourite as far as weather goes (September a close second) and the month as a child during which I was always happiest. Simple: August = camp, cottage, cousins. But I always had a really, really hard time coming home from our place in New Hampshire. I didn't connect with that part of my family often and when we did, I always felt such a strong sense of protection and belonging. I still do. And we had so much fun. We still do! I often cried on our way down the mountain, or up the dirt road from the lake. Still do that too! And I feel like crap all the way home because if I'm seeing these things, Bennington VT, Schnectady and Troy, Bob's Big Boy, then summer is definitely over.

But then you'd kind of resign to it. The day would wear on and on and on and after 7 hours, no matter what, you'd be totally ready to be home. You'd remember the cat, and the television, and the food you were used to, and the bed you hadn't slept in in a month. And you'd remember that you were kind of okay with going back to school cause you were 9, and had friends, or were starting juniour high. And for me, this always used to happen around the time you'd cross the Lewiston Bridge back to Canada. It's always late, and hot, the border guard is always cranky and you always have something to do tomorrow. But the look of that bridge heading north, and the border guards, they always bring me back to those long drives with my family and getting excited to see my hometown after sometimes six weeks away. Lying on my back on top of my sleeping bag across the bench seat of the Dodge Caravan, watching the way the light from the street lamps made shadows that pivoted and stretched as we drove home.

I have been lucky enough to have a few Totally Perfect Moments© in the last few months or so. I have never stopped having them, but they've been frequent in the last few months. I had one on Christmas Eve, driving up to my dad's place. Having just found a totally appropriate gift at Starbucks, while treating myself (I NEVER buy expensive coffee) to a huge choclatey coffee-y thing, an drinking it and listening to Otis Redding and encountering no traffic on the completely new-snow white drive to my dad's place, to spend a profoundly peaceful and simple evening with my closest family.

I had it in West Palm in February, for just half an instant - floating on my back in the beautiful pool at Will Shriver's place around midnight on a warm night, and noticing there was a ring around the moon.

I had it during the third at the Raptors playoff game, before they lost it. Just the right amount of stoned to be thrilled with the colours and the noise, and focused enough to remain involved. Just looking around at the thousands of people, all in red and white and focusing incredible amounts of emotion on to someone during a free through, all suddenly (mostly) wanting the same thing - realizing that as humans, we collectively do some very bizarre things sometimes.

And now they come faster.

I had it a week after that, on one of the first warm nights of the year. The days were getting so long, and I managed to get my shit together enough to remember to bring my rollerblades with me to the studio. And I skated all the way out to where the path ends, along the beaches, and came back again. The sun was just about to really go down, long, hot, hard light, and the beach and boardwalk were totally packed with people. Families and runners and couples and dogs all over the beach, volleyball teams not quite ready to quit yet. And everyone was happy. We had the most snow in like a bazillion years this winter, the second largest recorded snowfall ever. People were starting to lose it, I swear to you. I certainly was thinking about it and feeling so happy to have the warmth back, I felt connected to everyone there because I think they were all thinking about it as well.

And then just a few weeks later, I had many in Arizona: riding half-drunk through a dimly lit (light laws), cookie-cutter, mayonnaise coloured subdivision to pool hop on a hot night in my bare feet. Reaching the Robber's Roost easily in Sedona after being terrified I might not be able to hack the hike with all the gear, fresh off scaling around the most precarious climbing situation I'd ever encountered (adrenaline), to discover a perfect sunset. Sleeping on a hot rock by a cool river, in the shade of something at least 30 miles from anything.

And two weeks later, today, first significant period of time to myself in five days or so, forecast of thunderstorm but actually bright sun and lots of thick white clouds. Internal alarm clock functioning beautifully all of the sudden, up in time to throw on shorts and a tank top (because it's 22 degrees out) and get the bike my upstairs neighbor left me, the shitty old racing bike that is just somehow totally appropriate, out of the basement. Far more gracefully than I did when I last did this a week ago. Right music, right temperature, right route. Right song while on the right road, bright sun through huge patchy maple trees, a good buzz, fresh eggs waiting at home, and the pièce de résistance: a slight breeze and a huge shower of glittery green maple keys. The sudden recollection that I actually do live in a beautiful neighborhood in a beautiful city. And it's almost summer.

Sitting here in Avalon, looking at the pouring rain
Summertime has come and gone and everybody's home again
Closing down for the season, I found the last of the souvenirs
I can still taste the wedding cake and it's sweet after all these years

Since I was 12, I don't think I've ever gotten through one drive home from the cottage without purposely listening to that song, without staring longingly out the window as we pull out of Bristol, without getting heavy-hearted as we pass first the signs for Squam Lake and the On Golden Pond tours, then Ruggle's Mine - beautiful Bennington, Vermont flips it's meaning in my mind, it goes from being the quaint chunk of small-town America that tells me I am getting close to my most treasured place, to being a "now leaving paradise" landmark.

There is nothing so gut wrenching as leaving a desparately "summer place", a cottage town which thrives on "summer people", on one of the last days of August. No feeling is more meloncholy - I know it will be only a year until I return, but where will I be in a year? A WHOLE YEAR? On that drive home, THAT day, THAT is the farthest away I will ever be from my most beloved spot.

I will never know what it is that makes that chunk of the country so perfect for me, what makes that view and that beach and that feeling pull so strongly. It has been harder than ever this week to come back to the city, to the complexities of my life, to the noise and the people and the work. I don't know why it was so much harder this year, perhaps because we had as much family there as we'd had in years. I can hardly describe to you the peace that I felt, every single night, as I drifted off to sleep in my tent. The glow of a lantern off in the distance. The crickets, a pinecone falling off a tree, the breeze blowing a handful of water droplets onto the tarp above me. The calm that was so deep inside me, the calm of knowing everyone around me loved me and cared for me, and was only a moment away. It was like being a child again, feeling so protected and strengthened. This summer like never before, I wrapped my whole family around me and immersed myself in comfort and completedness. I slept the sleep of a better person. A person with no cares, even if for a brief time. It was heaven, and I woke up each morning rested and happy.

A week is never enough, before you can blink it is Wednesday, and then there are only two more days to do all that needs to be done. This cottage week seemed shorter than most. That Friday, that last day of sun - enjoying the sensation of that frigid water closing in on my incredibly stoned body, the extreme cold of it not unpleasant... just unique and unbelievably clean. Pushing up onto the waterlogged raft, drying too quickly in the hot sun, making the inevitable re-entry perfectly shocking and unpleasant in the most of ways. I wish the sun had never gone down. It was like my last day in Mexico, I could not stop looking at my watch, knowing the day was disappearing too fast. I floated around in the lake that Friday, growing increasingly more frightened to open my eyes - knowing each time I did the sun would be passing farther and farther over the changing hut, inevitably disappearing over that  tall white pine, leaving the sand blue and cold again.

Being up there high was an incredible experience, I know now there are a million more places to see in that state of mind, a million more experiences to appreciate and indulge in. That cold lake - I don't know what to tell you. It was something, as well, to stand in that road - all shutting off our headlamps and realizing what a thing it was to be in total darkness, how rare that was for all of us now living in the city. What a big deal it was to suddenly be silent and hear only noises of nature and noises of the earth - no cars. No music, no fans or air circulating devices, or refrigerators, or toilets filling, or computers clicking their cooling systems on or off.

I couldn't tell you what it is that has given that place such an idylic spot in my mind. It's not just the view, or the property. It's perfection and comfort certainly is a lot of it. It's simplicity and lack of amenities forces me into my sweatpants and away from the internet and my real-self just comes flooding out in this rush of emotion. It's everything I need in the best way, and nothing more. It's the warmest, most comfortable bed under a gently glowing blue pool of light, with a cool breeze flowing through. It's the darkest night and the brightest morning. It's hot tea by a warm fire, snuggled close as close as one could get to the rainstorm and never getting wet. It's delicious meals when I needed them most, it's lake-water washed hair. My skin a million times better out of the smog. Spring water. The crummy old sign at the Italian Farmhouse, the accent on the girl at the hardware store, that parking in Plymouth is free, everywhere. That their bank has a walk-up window, that the used bookstore has been there for 20 years, that there is always some clueless teenager and no good liqcour at the Newfound Grocery. That we've never even tried to get a pizza delivered, that if you ask kids what they do for fun they talk about a swimming hole, the serious attendance rates at square dances, watching 250 motorcycles go by... all of it, every iota, even the stuff I bitch about while I'm there makes it this picture perfect retreat that lasts long into my dreams, lasts long into October.

It is the hardest place to be when summer ends. It is painful there to watch the days growing shorter, because it is in it's prime for me. It signals the end of my time with everyone I hold dear. It is the hottest it will be for a year, things will only get colder from here on in - for me, at least. It is still, even in adulthood, a return to work and business and routine. Everything will be harder soon. And I've been depressed about it all week. And all this weekend. I lay on the roof, staring for ages at the thick, lush, leafy maple trees blowing in the wind, glowing a beautiful warm glow in the hot sun. Thinking of how the sun would look, beating down on the ashphalt dock at wee-bit, or coming in those many panes of glass.  Gently blowing the curtains at the head of that long dining table.

I miss all of you, so much. Already.
Only three-hundred and something days to go.

The roof of my building is awesome. I got up this morning around ten, threw a towel, my ipod, beers, the latest Toronto life, a small snack, a fairly good sized joint, my keys, and my phone into my backpack. I, very quickly and very quietly climbed out the second story window to the fire escape, up the stairs, over to the ladder, up the wall, over the peaked roof, and onto a comfortably large flat expanse of gravel and about six small exhaust vents. It is as tall as the other buildings around us, with a comfortable ledge - meaning when I recline, I'm completely and totally invisible.

Distant highrises are obscured mostly by trees - and will be obscured completely once the leaves come in.

It is 22 degrees here today, and not a cloud in the sky. A light and ignorable hum of 50 kph cars on Bathurst was easily overpowered by birds singing in the residential neighborhood surrounding us, and it was complete bliss. Warm sun and a bathing suit, cold beer, big joint, good music and good reading.... two hours later the cool apartment feels amazing and I am a lovely shade of brown. Wheels are turning in my mind, concocting afternoons spent with a cooler, a novel and a collapsible patio chair. Not a soul saw me and it was bliss. Completely private. Even better than our old balcony - no pesky shade to worry about. The breeze blows right across the whole roof, making the whole thing pure bliss.

So between the hours of 9 and 1 on weekend mornings over 15 degrees.... that is where you can find me.

Every summer, when it gets hot, I thank whomever orchestrates this grand drama for the fact that I drive a convertible.

A common scene; from last summer. Common this summer too.

Katie and I checked out Sunnyside Beach today. Her roomate suggested the path down there was better - she's on crack. It's choppier, busier, less scenic, less sandy area, smellier by far. It took us two hours to get there by transit compare to the 45 minutes it took us to get to Woodbine/Kew beaches area. The Woodbine beach does have way more "shiny" people - we had much more fun people watching then we did at Woodbine.

We started rollerblading immediately after we arrived and headed east back towards the city. I instantly started feeling whatever muscle development went on yesterday. There was a big hill to start, but after that it was pretty smooth sailing. The path was in mediocre condition, the vibrations didn't feel great, but it got better.

I have learned something important about Toronto that I will share with and single people out there. The people who go out to bars in this city, looking for other singles are all skeezey and gross and useless. If you want to meet people in this town, you go southernly. Both days we have been out, we have seen boys. So many men. And you see them, and you can infer quite quickly a few key points:

1. You are up early enough on a Sunday Morning that you didn't coke and beer binge late into last night.
2. You are here with your friends, meaning you can sustain healthy relationships with your friends without being drunk.
3. You live a healthy lifestyle, and are in fabulous shape (I can tell, you're not wearing a shirt).
4. You seem to have weekends off, suggesting that you are in a stable M-F 9-5 job. The neat haircut and clean shave support this also.

The situation at both places is heavily devoid of the "HAY BAY-BEE" type antics, regardless of how little clothing people are wearing (at 32 degrees, no one is to blame) and you are placed in a situation where you can be sure you share some interests with the people around you. I've always been really unsympathetic to my friends who go out to bars and get drunk and complain that the men and women they meet there are "assholes" or "ditzy" or "simple" or "only want one thing". I try to explain to them that you won't meet nice girls/strapping men in bars, that to meet someone even remotely interesting you have to get out there and have a fucking LIFE, and in doing that will meet other people with meaningful and productive lives, with passion and drive to places other than The Docks.

Anyways. We stopped outside Ontario Place for a popsicle; again at Coronation for a hot-dog, and went the full 8.2 kilometres to Union Station. A man kept chaging directions and stopping and not looking where he was going and eventually ran right into me and knocked me down. I was full stopped when he bumped me and he gave me a hand up and apologized. I should have decried "on your left!" but he wasn't local and wouldn't have understood anyways.

Regardless, I feel so productive and purposeful this weekend. I feel healthy and beautiful and strong and proud and energized all at once.

I picked up katrijn_noelle last night after a long day of shooting. We started out by doing a shot at my father's skeezy prep elementary school. Boarding school for rich kids. Bor-ring. After that we went out to The University of Toronto, where we shot some photos of two PhD paleontology (sp?) students working on a dinosaur fossil. Maybe I'm ignorrant, when I heard fossil, I thought it was going to be a big hunk of rock with some imprints in it. I didn't get that they were actually chipping away plaster and stone and extracting the head of a dinosaur. So we had unrestricted access to this giant skull of a duck-billed dinosaur called a corythosaurus. We got to look at it under microscopes, ask tons of questions. Amazing.

The head itself is from a warehouse, in Oakville. Originally, the ROM sent a large expedition to Alberta in the early 1900s, which was so successful, there wasn't nearly enough manpower to work on the samples brought back from out West. (They cut out huge chunks of rock and encase them in plaster and work on them in a safer environment.) So the most promising and large pieces were worked on, and hundreds of others, now only catalogued with handwritting notes on fading paper are just sitting in a warehouse.

So the one student was doing his thesis on the evolution of the duck-billed dinosaurs, and heard about this warehouse while he worked his internship for the ROM. Intrigued, he paged through hundreds of notes on the contents of each plaster chunk, sometimes only indentified with a couple of scentances. He found two heads, in the end, and through much work and effort, they were relinquished to him. He and an underclassmen work two hours or so a day on the piece; to be done correctly it will take 8-12 months to comeplete the second one. The first one is amazing, he did it alone and it took a year - but it is half the size as it's a juvenile.

Anyways. So I was less cranky about being there because we learned a shit load. The space they work in is incredible - so totally mad scientist. Samples stored on high shelves in shoeboxes and cigar boxes, safari hats with things like "I SURVIVED EL PASO DIG 1976", clippings of any Calvin and Hobbes cartoon featuring Calvin the dinosaur (which I always loved, too) and a 22 year old turtle who can get out of his own tank and wanders around on the floor.

Anyways. I picked up Katie late evening and we went to sportmart and got our @$99.99 K2 rollerblades. Shit has come a LONG way since like 6 or 7 years ago. My teenaged rollerblades, which still fit a couple of years ago, but were very uncomfortable and heavy and cheap were made of almost entirely hard plastic on the outside, the buckles were hard and cumbersome, the laces far too long. Now, rollerblades are almost entirely SOFT and are much more smooth and comfortable. It was amazing how quickly it all came back, I tried to go too fast and hockey stop to soon and bailed on my bum but only my pride was hurt. The feel of it came back by the end of the day, the looooong glides, crossovers, etc. Katie didn't fall once, it was awesome.

We took the subway out to the east end, and bus to the beach. It was a beautiful day today; 29 degrees or something. The beach was bustling, the bike path is incredibly smooth and runs right through the beach. There was a group doing capoeira in the sun, lots of silly boys on bikes, girls lying in the sun. We rolled on the path for 30 or 40 minutes or so; then got a popsicle. It tasted like the best thing in the world. We napped on the beach in the sun for an hour or so after that, I deepend like another three shades. We went home after that; I rollerbladed up-hill from the subway station to our place and worked up quite a heartrate.

Justin is out playing a round with the other CPGA candidates. I hope they're helping eachother out. Blue cheese burgers for dinner. More rollerblading tomorrow.

I have arranged that my alloted Cottage Time (co-ordinated with the Big's annual end-of-august trip to their rustic cabin) this year is.... DRUMROLL

August the 19th to the 27th. Meaning I can leave as early as late night on the 18th, and come home balls o'clock in the middle of the night on the 27th. Full week of goodness. None of this four-days-travel-inclusive bull shit.

This is also amazing, becuase I looked at this (which totally made me crazy-nostalgic, looking at WOW MONDAY CABIN NIGHT etc.) and realized Chuck and Kath will be snagging Ems on the 19th, meaning if we leave on the 18th, everyone arrives at the SAME TIME for a WHOLE WEEK of familial gin-and-tonic beach-related awesome. Eric and his lady are coming that week too, and Daniel and Alaina shortly after that.

So be you warned, family - co-ordinate or SUFFER MY WRATH, BITCHES.

These are shots from a trip to Crystal Beach last summer in Fort Erie, Ontario. There is nothing in the world better than cramming 10 people into a couple of convertibles and booking it to somewhere sandy and water-y. No one got more drunk than I, and I slept all the way home.

These pictures make me long for the summer, and excited for katrijn_noelle to arrive.