This summer has felt like the end of whatever movie I have been in since a little before I met you. Before I go any further with that, I think it's bad for you (the impersonal 'you') to think of your life like you would a narrative complete with chapters, rising action, and secondary characters. Life doesn't make sense. But I can't help but notice threads in my life are closing. Almost everyone I know are moving on from or leaving behind something that I first met them in. For some people, it's relationships. Most I know have ended, and a rare few have legally binded themselves in marriage. For others, it's our hometown. Some people I know are getting as far as they can away from it, others are coming back to it. Sometimes it's old habits dying hard. Most often they're old for a reason. Regardless, I get the feeling that it's the end of an era. And for the first time, that isn't such a bad thing. The end of this era seems to be for the better. Everyone is getting their shit together, myself included. It's like when a TV show ends, and the characters go their separate ways, and there's the implication that nothing else will happen to them after the credits roll. They have now found these almost transcendental places where they can be happy and fulfilled forever, completely away from the audience. Kind of like Heaven but on earth and godless and not all that grand. It feels like we're all going there now, even though I know for a fact that's not true. It couldn't be. At the very least I hope things stay better for everyone.
The Sergeant Doctor, at the corn maze with me and his sons last week, just has storm clouds descended over the smoked out Prairie sky, said "Serendipity".
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I talk at you about photography a lot. At least I feel like it. But I don't think I have really expressed what it means to me. This is not a college application essay. Actually, I'll dedicate a longer post to this ("YAY!!!!!" I hear you scream). But basically, I feel like a big part of my identity that seems to have been frozen since I was in middle school has been unthawed. I feel like a lot better of a person for doing it again.
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I hung out with Ash last night, which was really nice, honestly. I feel like there's a bit of baggage that comes with talking about them, given our past and all. Maybe that's just me. That past has hardly been addressed, but I think it's better off just leaving it that way. Water under the bridge.
We had a 6-hour long conversation about reality TV, Nan Goldin, Donald Trump, having sex, falling in love, men and women, past relationships, and 'sad' arthouse movies vs. Jean-Pierre Jeunet apparent profoundly life-affirming Amélie, which I have been told to drop everything I'm doing and watch immediately. We were under the covers of their bed for most of it, with me somewhat nestled between the point their bedframe ends and the wall it faces begins, while they were opposite to me, seemingly far more voluntarily comfortable than I was (if you've ever laid in bed with me, you know this is a lifelong habit of mine). If this was any other year, this arrangement would have struck me has shark-jumping the limits of platonicity, and sure, I couldn't help but think it would looked strange to be found here. But at the same time, I really didn't give a fuck either way, y'know? You know when you're smoking weed and you're in some MFM cuddling arrangement on a couch, and there's no bullshit, and it's not meant to go anywhere, that's just what it is for now. I like moments like that. I like the little imperceptibilities of life.
They now live in the Southwest end of Calgary, a couple streets down from the Red Mile (diligent readers of this newsletter will recall this as the setting of a lot of my early posts, namely "Hope vs. Rome"). It's effectively walking distance from my old stomping grounds, meaning Max's mom's apartment behind the high school. I only ever used to spend weekends here, but there's a homeliness to it that I can only find in two other places. It was nice being back. Unlike E-Town, I always went to Calgary for fun. I never worked or lived here. I have no memories of everyday misery here. It also helps that Calgary is generally a sunnier city than Edmonton's somehow seaside dilapidation. On my midnight drive home, feeling more towered over by this city than my own, I imagined what life would have been like if I went to the University of Calgary as opposed to the University of Alberta, what my stories of the last year would have been like if this was there setting. Instead of Whyte Avenue, the Red Mile. Instead of The Bookseller, Sigla Books. The little things would be different. Driving past the Deerfoot Trail streetlights as I trucked toward the immense black of night, I wondered if I would have been happier down here. I know it wouldn't have mattered where I was. And whatever I've been through feels behind me.
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New York. I have never felt better anywhere on earth these last few years than under the Manhattan Bridge with you.
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After we argued about my ex-girlfriend and current boyfriend, I realized definitively that I will probably know you for the rest of my life.
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If I wasn't you're friend, I'd either be lazy, an asshole, or both. I'm "cool" in spite of myself. I'm better with you as my friend.
Every song is a comeback
Every moment's a little bit later
