CRYPTIC GREETING
Standing underneath the roof of windows and geometrical white beams, I’m looking out for someone in the shade and into the sunlight. I have my headphones in my ears; calculated layers of texturized fuzz. I pan to the left and attempt to focus in the distance for a few seconds when I feel a tap on my right shoulder. There is a somewhat unkempt man in an orange t-shirt motioning me to take my headphones. I do and then look at him cautiously.
“Nice day out, isn’t it?” he says.
“Sure.”
“How are you today? And why are you standing in this shade?”
He reaches out to shake my hand to which I automatically comply.
“Wow, why are are your hands cold?” he says.
“That’s because I am dead.” I replied.
“Ha ha ha. Funny one. Hey there mate, you wouldn’t happen to have any change you could lend a guy, huh?”
“No.” I reply flatly.
With that instance the ‘long lost buddy’ front drops and he’s turned on his heels and gone elsewhere. I don’t think my dry humour helped either.
And I think he may have grumbled something under his breath, perhaps the word ‘prick’ but I wasn’t quite sure. This individual had just as much of a right, perhaps even more of a right, to confront my space to ask for resources and time as much as an advertising billboard or a sales representative on the street but they might not be getting the reaction or results they’re looking for.
DISCONNECTION
There’s been some certain unsettled feeling that I’ve been trying to pinpoint for a while. It’s not entirely easy to know exactly what it is. I supposed my most recent trip back to Vancouver shifted the dynamic of this in a way that might come out to a resolve. The feeling can be represented with this epic metaphor: climbing out of a boat and onto the ladder of a helicopter. I’ve been on the boat for a long time. A lot of familiar friends and people were on the boat. Plenty of drink to go around. Many great times and memories have happened on this boat. But the boat is a pleasure cruiser with a certain ceiling and there’s more to this life than nautical miles, looking out starboard and funny white captain hats. It’ll be going the same way for a long time.
I look around and make out a helicopter and despite the difficult logistics of climbing out of a boat and into a helicopter. Getting ready takes a long time and my fellow boaters aren’t certain that I’m actually going to go ahead with it. The helicopter lowers to the boat and I’m starting to reach up. There’s this long, strenuous period — quite dark — not a lot of fun, destitute and painful. There’s a lot of different things in that time, in the actual transition, that are painful and too weird and numerous to mention.
I think I’ve been dragging out the metaphor for a while and am loosing focus on it. I realized that my return trip got me to re-connect with certain people, certain elements of that time but it’s definitely not the same. I’m making good footing where I am now and making a home somewhere else. The past can stay where it is, really. There’s plenty of artifacts in my life that will provide a document of it: thrashy old songs, beat up journals, bad jokes that still have staying power after 5-10 years, correspondence once in a while, and the same goals and ideals going into this new decade. The disconnection will always be there, but now I know there’s a whole lot more things up in the helicopter…
