where is the tire swing?

“Well need I tell you what your homework for the week is to be?!” head doctor says with a coy smile. “Yeah, yeah Play, I will learn to play” I said rolling my eyes embarrassed at my knowledge deficit and humbled at the task of learning such a lesson at 32. A giggle shared gleefully in contrast to the normally emotionally loaded introspection that goes on in that room.

The origin of said homework crystallized a few weeks back at a conference in which a speaker presented a study on childhood development in places of war. In this study the speaker analyzed the importance and subsequent evolution of the three main environments (Home, School, and Play) children grow up in and how development of self is affected when those environments are placed under conditions of duress.

Now I want to stress first and foremost that I do not see any synonymous parallels with my upbringing and a child living next to the Gaza Strip. However once she started speaking the title card of her presentation deck caught my attention in a way I never saw coming. On the slide were three icons representing the childhood environments, thematically illustrated with crayon. Home, School, and Play. Once that slide was on the screen I left the lecture hall for a sec as my mind filled with images of my retroactive Home, School, and Play places and I couldn’t breath. It wasn’t Israel and Palestine, but there was never a cohesive stability in any of those surrounds at a given time during the years that mattered. Now with the war over etc and a peace found there still seems there are lessons to be learned.

The last few years I have had these panic attacks of sorts. Volatile cocktails of emotion that seem to ignite in a second, too fast for me to wrangle with my own mind so instead I escape. The mixology of said cocktail is not easily understood as these emotive back-drafts occur so quickly my internal analytics seldom catch a detail I can hold on to. Occurrences of note: Enjoying the eye candy that is the Rio Population while wasting time on the beach, Enjoying a hipster art fair full of irony and cute furry boys in plaid, and most recently watching a spirited young break-dance troupe literally ‘play’ to the beat.

Back to the three environments a second.

Thirty-two years has brought me well-worn wisdom as to how to feed my nesting needs and curious nature well. First two environments handled, but the play, oh the play. My life is full of goal-orientated activities from running to travel, but nothing that is throw away fun. This I have been made painfully aware.

The other day a friend installed Photoshop on my computer and I sat down to reorientate myself with the toolset as it had been years since using the program. Without knowing I faffed away four hours like it was five minutes with nothing to show but a junk image edited beyond recognition. Throw away fun. I had never felt so calm. I knew at the end of the four hours that I needed more of this.

Whilst talking with the head doctor I realized how the moments that fully restored me were the times I unintentionally found myself ‘playing’. I laughed when I thought of my travels. For me traveling was a goal, a list of cities, a list of momuments, a list of ‘been theres’ to tell. But it was on those travels, when I was alone and away from environments and people I presumed would judge me for playing that I picked up my camera and disappeared an unknown town and away from my head for days on end. The irony being is no one at home or away would ever judge me for playing, I had/have good friends. It was all internal.

All this to say, I think full self actualization and or ‘a path’ can only be known if you are able to fully understand how you need to ‘play’. As it stands ‘playing for the sake of throw away enjoyment fills me with guilt and shame as if I am going to be caught at doing something wrong. I need this fixed.

“So it’s aptly timed that you have the resources and time to play right now” head doctor says, her smile revelling in the serendipity.

brotherly love or something like that

“He was like a brother to you, a brother who never judged you…” my mother says as I sit on the other end of the phone emotional trying to make sense out of my confused reaction to my roommate’s formal acceptance of the San Francisco job, a job that will take him out of my Montreal Life come January.

“That’s it, that’s what this is, that is why I feel like this” I replied cutting her off midsentence as soon as she said ‘who never judged you’. I had been trying to figure out the emotional reaction I was having to his move, a reaction I have been trying to smother for fear he will see it ever since San Fran started sniffing around.

I am not naïve, never once did I think our living situation would last forever. I was unprepared however as to how I would feel when the ending came. I don’t harbor any romantic or anything other than platonic love the man and could not be more ecstatic for the good things that lie ahead for him. But my gut aches and apprehension finds me as to living Montreal on my own without him.

When my mother made the comment about judgment, or rather the lack of, the tears came finally suppressing it no longer. The bedroom door was closed and our conversation was whispered so he likely heard nothing. He is a simple rational man and probably has no clue what so ever his unconditional, almost blasé acceptance of my life in its entirety has healed so much that I never knew was not. I am not sure being straight he would understand it. Part of me doesn’t want him to, as it is the simplicity of the relationship that holds its strength.

The plan as it stands is to keep the place and try the whole living alone thing. Finances and ultimately personal headspace will dictate if downsizing and or another roommate will be needed. Regardless there will not be another situation like this in my life. The intimacy will now either be operational (roommate for the sake of bills) or a partner (roommate for the sake of love) in nature. Of course I am hoping for the latter. Friendship will happen in either but never in the affecting way of one crazy dancing French man.

modern momentum

“What would happen if you ‘got caught’?” my shrink asks confused. “I don’t know, I mean we just didn’t risk it” I replied, an illogical answer. “Truth be told I don’t any of us really knew how”.

We had been discussing the guilt that had been plaguing me of late. Guilt that was hindering my full enjoyment of my hedonistic time-off. The main goal of this time off with activities entirely focused on calm, was to learn how to marinate in self-served relaxation. The idea being that from this calm, collected, dare I wish, gleeful position that the next steps I need to take will unfold and reveal themselves.

“What was different about the Spa, why were you able to relax there?” she asked referring my restorative Friday at the Nordic baths. “Because I paid for it.”

I wish I could give name to the cross I drag across the floorboards when it comes to my inability to enjoy relaxation. I simply have no clue what exactly it is I am atoning for that seems to be the self imposed road blocker in front of the serenity I seek.

Relaxation makes me so nervous. So much so in fact that it was about five blocks away from the spa on Friday where I became anxious that I would not be able to relax ‘properly’, pausing to ponder even cancelling. It was only through some silly self-talk that I convinced myself to go. Self-talk including the ‘paid for it’ justification in which in order to allow the voice of self-sooth, I had to give words, slightly resentful words, to the voice of self-sacrifice.

I do not have the monopoly on the inability to relax, this I am aware and do not pretend to. Our society fails miserably at the solitude and calm many other societies value as a basic life necessity. Many mingle amongst the masses with mug of coffee in hand; the required drug for modern momentum. Fearful they are that if they stop for but a minute they will face ‘the now’ and not ‘the then’ or ‘the were’. This is not my excuse.

For going on years now I have tried to curtail the thrash about of my internal dialogue so it stays wrangled to the present moment. Its only now at the age of 32 that I can I have started to build up the toolset in order to do this; it has taken this long. Yet tonight as I returned to an empty apartment with nothing but my self and my selfish pleasure at my disposable, I was nervous.

This is how it will be in a mere few months, my own home entirely in my hands. There will be no live-in guard to ensure I will forever keep moving, keep distracting from my own personal stillness. The thought along speeds up movement and crazes mind like that of a hunted animal wanting to run and hide for cover.

I am not sure what I fear or what I feel guilty about. I am alone, this I know. I am lonely yes, but not in the way that disables my waking life. I have acknowledged that I do in fact, much to my surprise, have the desire to bond and in tandem with this I have fostered the faith that it will show up when its supposed to. So if its not that, or the operational aspect of maintaining a single income dwelling, okay that termmade me feel lonely☺, then what is it? I guess there really is only one way to find out.

dem apples

Tonight the moon a moment before the sun slumbered was a lovely apple red against the pale blue sky; a fitting end for a day centered on that inaugural fruit.

“It all started with the Apple remember that” Frenchy says to me this morning as I readied myself for the countryside. Back in the original garden the moment the first red skin met incisor, temptation and desire forever found its place under the myopic judgment of the unseen mystical jury up in the sky. From this point forward inherent drives and desires lacking intellect crossed lines wider than the greatest oceans. Though true for the Catholics, what was my excuse I wondered as I sat atop my apple picking ladder biting into a Cortland with a slight hard on in my pants. Always in the garden, forever unyielding.

I was due to have a date later on tonight, or so I thought but he never called. Truth is I am glad he didn’t, not because he was not attractive or interesting as he was but its the fear of relating again, or attempting to, has made me gun-shy. I am definitely in protective incubation mode as I continue to work the rest of my life shit out. I pondered if I would have been more relaxed if he texted me and said “wanna f_ck” providing a snickers bar level of satisfaction, yet the fact that even that wasn’t sent relieved me as well.

I am forever at a state of defensive dissonance with my drives and this week has blatantly illustrated this. To say I was randy would be like calling the pope religious. An understatement illustrated by the quick turn of my neck to anything pretty and the conversation stopping distraction of all things male that consumes me of late. I need to ‘scratch the itch’ but yet its the risk of confusion that it would cause that keeps me adequately repulsed to not follow through. This confusion, yet more confusion would scare me to death.

I am not afraid of the whole ‘will sex mean a relationship?’ confusion, that clichéd fear that usually is found post bump and grind. Rather I am afraid sex let me down, again.

I was at the Nordic Spa on Friday, a life changing experience. I entered for relaxation and left with sensory restoration. In amongst the hot and cold baths I kept lapsing into meditation so rewarding and accessible it had the ironic ease of everyday conversation in this muted environment. Meditation that was continuously fostered by the sensuality of the space. The last time I had been this focused was Brazil. For four hours I allowed my mind to be governed by my senses and much like after my time in Rio, I left sublimely satisfied.

I am not naïve to sex, nor do I have puritan values and think every moment hot and sweaty must be the making of and or leading to love. I love fucking. Lately however I have become so bored by it. Sitting in the eucalyptus steam room, face wet and shoulders caressed with warmth greater than any hug I have known from a man or woman, I was sullen a moment, saddened by the realization that I have only ever felt this by myself. I fear that if I just ‘scratch that itch’ and play the naked egoic power struggle I have come to know as modern sexuality I will only be reminded of this and I have no room for sad right now.

Red is the color of the root or base Chakra, the energy center responsible for the grounding force that allows us to connect to the earth energies and empower our beings. An apple red usually in text, symbol and ornament, this red was the same red as the moon at sunset. To clear one’s root chakra it is suggested that stomping on the ground or marching will in turn open any blockages. I giggled when I read that as with all the frustrations found in 2010 thus far and the ways I have managed them inclusive of countless kms ran and hours at the gym, my ‘red’ root Chakra is biblically cleaned god dammit.

Newton gained his claim to fame with the fall of an apple, sparking an idea that would change the way we would forever see life. I am not looking for anything that grandiose but this afternoon as I picked and apples fell from the branches above, I have to admit with every thud heard as they hit the ground to decay under the yet to come winter snow, I awaited for the moment of clarity that would bring me insight as to how to answer this question. A law still undefined, I sat atop the latter and bit into another apple.

my situation

“Good for you, most people wouldn’t be so active in your situation” she said as we finished up our meal. “My situation?” I asked confused.

I write this made recently unemployed with no clue what to apply or pursue next. I have a sick father miles away that is about to under go cancer treatment for a spread still undefined at this time. My roommate of the last three years is moving to San Fran in a matter of months with his girlfriend. And yet again, I enter a monk phase where any desire to relate to another man has hibernated for a time to be defined.

To her credit I think she meant the first bit and my recent spending habits when she mentioned ‘my situation’ but I had to giggle as fucked if I could think of what else to do now in 'my situation' but find glee through concert and movie tickets etc. I really need glee right now.

“Most people would stay at home, spend more time at home I guess is all I mean.”

Its being left alone amongst my four walls normally that would put me in a state of fear as I do not well with thinking. Having the luxury to languish with my own thoughts usually leads to a twist of the gut with a life outlook dire. Lately however that is not the case. Thanks to a bald fat man I have learned to steer my own cognitive ship and it’s been such a relief. But still I was a bit offended at the passive aggressive judgment of the statement, even if it was accidental.

I strongly believe you are your thoughts, that if you foster jealousy you beget lack, if you foster envy you end up alone etc. 2010 has been a test of this for sure. Having entered January with sun kissed optimism still glowing from a recent trip to Brazil, I set out to plan the year ahead with authentic and deserving goals only to have the roadmap thwarted at every turn. With two months left of the year I can confidently say it will not end anywhere near where I had planned.

The person that said the ‘situation’ comment is one of my near and dears and truth be told I have never been jealous or envious of her, she is too sweet to. On the night however as she sat there with her husband discussing her anticipatory familial visits to their new condo on account of the upcoming birth, my eyes went green almost in defense. Deep breaths were taken and I got through it. I will forget about the comment eventually but I have to admit that night it was hard.

dear mm

It’s hard for me to imagine that it was only five years ago that I met her in person. She worked remotely from home and as such she held a mystique about her. Our discourse up until that point occurred via email only so on the day i was to go over to her house for the first time I was excited to finally be meeting the great MM in person. I had only heard great things.

Initially I had only made time for a quick run as there was no need for a long visit. As signing authority she needed to John Hancock a few papers and back to the office I was to go. Those original five minutes became many and those many, many more.

I do not work well if I do not have her in my life.

Of late the dialogues with my female friends both married and single has been centered on mothering. It makes sense as that this topic would be of interest as we are of that age where society casts those meant to carry the torch maternity into the race they need to run. Biologically at least.

I am a bad audience for these conversations for several reasons. I wont go into all of them now as it may ring ‘gay misogynist’ and that is never and not my intent. All this to say for me maternal energy shows it strength way past the drip and poop years. Those meant to mother, to guide, to nourish and encourage do so when those that need it require much more than a wet-nap can provide. Those meant to mother do so even if their life circumstance have not provided them children of their own; biological bonds are not a must have.

MM came into my life when I was humbled by the amount of change I needed to do to make myself the version of myself I was meant to be, the version of myself I wanted to be. Change that ultimately included leaving an industry that was making me toxic, a move out of a city I no longer fit and most importantly beginning a period of introspection that defined me as much of the man I am today. First steps to all of this would not be taken if I didn’t feel safe; I had not felt safe until she came into my life.

I wish I knew how she does this as I would bring ‘happy pill’ manufacturers to their knees. Her secret doesn’t reveal itself in her actions but you sense it always. Be it in the warm rasp of her hello at the start of a lengthy phone conversation or the coy stare she gives you during one of her well attended dinner parties, she sees more about you than you do. Being near and around her she makes your own skin, regardless of how unsure you are of it, fit like it should.

After every time we speak there is a part of me that feels guilty. Guilt over my inability to possibly pay her back for all she has brought to my life. An enormous amount.

She called today, asked how I was. I spoke of the current period of change that I again find myself in with my life circumstances demanding endurance from me that I must trust I have. I was reminded of that day five years ago and the relief I had felt as I sat in her home when our friendship began. There was an echo today as I felt the same relief the moment I heard her voice.

Parental energy sets the foundations of self. It establishes the esteem needed to not fear what life brings you with trust in your own ability to navigate; even if you don't have it, you know some one does. It gives volume to your own voice and validates those inherent needs and desires you need to be you.

Foundations were set five years ago, and now I confidently build the second story.

c.s.my.

Today the most beautiful man was at the coffee shop in the village. His eyes, dark and intense like the coffee he sipped, focused on the newspaper crosswords while his hand scribed answers confidentially with black pen. Intelligent and or fearless; either way hot. Dressed in the inherent masculine colors and textures of autumn, his clothes were analogous to the man inside. I watched him a few minutes as he paused to run his hands through his hair, hair more pepper then salt and started to wonder what he sounded like. An easy question to answer with a simple hello on my part.

The evening prior my mother had called and regaled me with a synopsis of one of the McCrime Dramas she had watched that evening in which one the suspect was a gay man whom every time he attempted to access his need to meet other gay men would end up murdering them. She knew not the name of the show and truthfully kept forgetting or changing details of the story, still however I got the gist. “It must be so awful to be that angry like that, I mean the man just never allowed himself to be happy” she said on the phone. Bless her.

I could have talked to Mr. Crossword, I could have said hi but I didn’t. Instead I donned the ipod and went about my journey home.

Now I didn’t stop myself from saying hi out of fear of rejection, contrary to how blatant that may appear. Nor was I afraid of him accepting me and I in turn become like the suspect my mother’s most watched melodrama. I was out of duck tape and black garbage bags anyways. In truth however it was the latter that was more akin to my motive.

During the last few years I have let some dickhead men into my life. Men that when I look back now and see that it was moment one that held red flags felt on a guttural level that i chose to ignore. I let many in.

With this last year I have been letting many of them out and creating a space not empty but rather full of room for new healthier type of relationship. So far the relationship re-org has been predominately on the friend level and the results have been instantaneously inspired. I now surround myself with people that gutturally bring me joy that if needed I could intellectualize their importance to my life but there has not been a need to go that far? Its trite to say, but my sense of self right now is directly reaping the bulk of the rewards.

As I stood in the café looking at Mr.Crossword the dialogue that ran through my head was “not yet, I can’t yet I am not ready”. I would like to say that this was authentic self-protection during a much needed incubation period, but I can't. It would make sense logically though as I am entering the next phase of so many things. However i get the sense I am kidding myself that it wasn’t good old simple basic fear. Normally after a 'cute guy notice and stare' I smile happily, content knowing that there is something that interesting in the world. This time was different. There was an ache in my gut as I put my ear-buds in my ears and pressed play. An ache I still feel now as I type. I think I know the answer, no forensics required.

commerce of conversation

I am learning Arabic in French. I am far from comfortable in French yet, so if I known that this course was in French when I registered I would have likely not. However, having just attended my first class, I am fatigued much in the same way I am when I push myself during a long run. I know it will hurt, I know I it be tough but I know once the pain resides I am that much stronger for it in both form and endurance.

The language in my life of late has been pushed much in the same way. My lexicon internally and externally has had its verbiage audited for dialogues destructive and words now out of date on account of their deprecating nature. Their removal has led to a sublime confidence in both my intentions and actions. Replaced by phrases full of will, my words now speak for me and not against me. Depending on the context and with whom, some are spoken with concrete certainty and others with the fragility of new. Either way they are spoken. The more they continue to be spoken they become like that of the wearing-in of a splinted shin, and my own endurance for myself abounds.

This exercise that has been the last few introspective months have left me with a profound understanding of the value of words if used positively and ultimately the cost for those corrosive. I wonder if there was a cost for everything spoken, a price point for prose, would society still with war and consumerism distract from all those things left unsaid; inclusion, respect, love. We learn big words for diseases, fun words for medications, bad words for difference, mean words from fear, and speak all of them as if they are wholesale. Maybe I am a naïve born again optimist but I honestly believe that commerce of conversation is needed. The rate of return would forbid verbal garbage.

Maybe I am not sure exactly what I am saying; maybe my words are not clear. Until they are I will continue learning Arabic in French.

surplus of solitude...scary

“They have office all over the world, likely the department I am being recruited for is in San Francisco, but who knows. P so would come with too which is awesome, I will know more tomorrow” the roommate says while making dinner. I fight the urge to say “but we were supposed to buy a triplex together, that was the goal” and instead wish him well during his interview tomorrow and I look forward to hearing more about it.

In two days I will have 10 extra hours of alone time on my hands, for a month at least. The roommate is going on one of his extended cross continental trips and work will finish, both presenting me with more quiet then I have become used to.

People at work keep asking what I will do next, and I say truthfully “looking forward to some serious time off, rest relaxation etc”. For the most part that statement is true. I am ready for a pause and I am ready for what is next. But I am also really scared. Not about paying my bills, but rather soothing my social needs. I am one of those people that use work both vocationally and as a tool to meet and form bonds. I am not on of those hidden in his cubical types, I actually like to learn about my coworkers lives, their families etc, all of it. I bond. As well at this job especially, my coworkers have helped foster so many things in me that have built such self confidence, I am trepidacious of going it alone. I know its what I have to do, this I know by gut, but my head panics now and again as the day approaches.

The same can be said for the roommate. During our three years together he has served as my in house rational during a period of time when a sound spiritual grounding was needed. He gets credit for so much of the confidence I have today. But again fear finds me when the plans we made are put in jeopardy, when he will leave me for her, etc. He will leave me for her, San Fran or not. Fear finds me. In two days I will be alone, the roommate will come back, but it really is only a matter of time.

Its funny I have traveled the world. I have relocated thrice and successfully made friends in all ports of call. Never once facing fear. I know I will be fine; I am not losing the plot or anything, just a bit nervous.

I also hear my gut speaking and I can’t ignore it. “Its time for you to find your own.”

Perhaps it’s that which scares me the most.

maybe I do eat the red ones last

I had picked the red smartie, the day had been shit and yet I had to have picked the red smartie.

It was a game designed to encourage sharing amongst all the new volunteers at the orientation night. I was there to offer my services to under privilege kids with tutorial services in math and physics, but in order to do so I had to pick a smarty first. I picked the red one.

The day at work, my last Friday before the lay off, had been taxing. Fear had found me in the morning and I worked the rest of the day fighting off the doubt about my success in figuring out what exactly to do next. My drive was nonexistent and I was truth be told looking forward to this orientation as a distraction from all things ‘next steps’. This anticipation thwarted as the volunteer coordinator explained why I had to have picked a smartie.

Each smartie corresponded to a question each potential volunteer would have to answer in an attempt to introduce each volunteer to the group with a personal revelation. As she posted the color coded legend on the chalkboard in front of us I gasped and uttered “fuck off” under my breath when I discovered that the question for the read smartie was ‘What is your passion and why?’.

I am not sure I have a single passion other then masturbation that defines me as a person. In fact I have spent my life searching for that definitive goal that pulls me out of bed always and clearly focuses my vocational trajectory. I have not found it yet. Earlier in the day I was told by two coworkers that I should be prepared to discuss in my next job interview the jump I had made from career one to career two. Discuss it almost to justify it like I had done something wrong or was to be considered lucky for the job that was very shortly laying me off.

“So Bradley, what is your passion and why?” the lovely altruistic volunteer coordinator asks of me as I hold my candy coated red pill. I wanted to throw it at her.

I bullshitted my way through something about cooking etc, it was a socially acceptable passion and appeased the group. It was my neighbors turn next and she had the pink smartie, the ‘what makes you laugh and why?’ smartie. I giggled and uttered under my breath ‘my inability to own the red smartie’.

One day.

perfect presence

This weekend past was my birthday. I say weekend as it was just that, a nice long weekend full of celebration starting on Thursday and ending Sunday night. I want to write about as cohesive bundle but cannot find synergy amongst the days, which is odd. Regardless the whole weekend has left me with such a holistic smile.

Thursday found me fatigued and tired by the thought of the three weeks of work that lied ahead. I was was due to go to a concert and even though a fan of the band, I so wanted to just crawl under the covers for an rainy night snuggle with my duvet Plus earlier in the day the Love Lady took me through myself yet again in a way that left me with points to ponder further and the duvet would have helped with that as well. But I had committed to go so I went. The band played, my ass jiggled as I danced about for a couple of hours and wandered home cleansed from the fatigue that found me earlier in the day. I was so glad I went as though the official weekend would start tomorrow, that night I fore-played.

Friday found me attending a book signing for the new book from on of my favorite gay authors in one of my favorite bookstores. The writer, a charming man skilled with words typed, was hindered in words said by a nervous stutter that found him the moment he took the mike. I watched him read aloud the words he assembled gracefully on the page but now faced in defense of his own battling tongue. The stutter would attack his emotive momentum anytime passion would find him. I wondered what that must be like, to be the art thief in one’s own gallery, your own work created and stolen by the same hand. I wondered only for a second until it sunk in, I have done this to myself for years now but not with my tongue but with my own thoughts. Initially as the authors stutter snuck out the first few times I felt sorry for him, but this ultimately became envy. I started to envy this man for his self destructiveness literally had a voice different from his own so the battle he would face became easier. When its one’s own thoughts that stealthily erode the secure foundations of self, the battle has to be that much more strategic. Watching this man I was relieved to see him successfully battle his own attacks, it would ultimately serve as inspiration for my own.

Saturday started bright and early at the car rental counter. I had no clue what to expect with the Ms and even more so M and D. The thing is we are relatively new friends, new friends that have never road-tripped or spent a significant amount of time with each other. A full day in the townships would change this and though I was not worried as these are warm welcoming people, the day could have gone a myriad of different ways. Last year I filled a bar with people and made a lot of noise, drank a lot of booze and started my 31st year with a list a mile long of expectations that 365 days later would prove greater then the year could full-fill. I did not want noise this year, I wanted calm. On this Saturday the autumnal sun shone the mature heat of the season as we drove about the vineyard. Its warmth creating a comfortable coddle in car where conversation flowed as easily as the wine. There was no aggression, no expectation, just a languishing calm.

Sunday brought me the inherent whimsy and play that is F. Mexican and desert was had in her neighborhood as gleeful chitter-chatter chewed away five hours in a heartbeat. She is a ray of optimism even when she is being a cynic. Having known F for going on almost 20 years, there is a warmth with her much like that of a comfy sweater. In her space my past and my present fit just right and for that I forever grateful. The perfect nightcap on a weekend full of calm.

Cohesion, maybe? Calm, for sure.

23 mins and 18 seconds

It took 23 minutes and 18 seconds to complete, the whole 5 K. A small race, a quick race; a race, for me, moving.

The night before I was at a friends house for a games night and as we sat and played away I found myself distracted. I would like to say it was nerves about the race, about my performance etc, but it wasn’t. I was entering the race for the sense of accomplishment so the time was irrelevant. If it took me a day to complete the 5K I would have been fine with that. I just wanted to own the accomplishment. At the games night I was so agitated though and for reasons I couldn’t name even with the evening itself lovely with the company enjoyable calm.

A week earlier I was due to run my initial race, a plan to be thwarted by my father’s illness. Even though I was happy I went home, part of me still feels so robbed of that weekend, a weekend that held the race and a concert full of camp play. No one was going to try to rob me of this race, or so I thought. Yet as the race day approached I would realize that it was myself I had to worry about the most.

It was five pm on the Saturday before the race when I decided to check the website to review the route etc. On a page I viewed many times before I only now noticed a procedural note about registration and racing number pick up. A location was specified down town with only an hour remaining for me to pick it up. “Fuck Bradley!” I said allowed as I quickly grabbed a cab and rushed down there to pick up my registration information. Once inside I wandered the conference center set up with heaps of marathon information, excited and worried in equal measure. Excited as I was ‘one of them’ those that run, that have that sense of empowerment etc, or rather I was going to officially be one. Worried that they would sniff me out and reject me. The worry was irrational I know, but so was my inability to pick up race information earlier, I am never tardy or late.

Later that night I would return home to bed and prepped my clothes and tomorrow’s breakfast so I would be mere minutes out the door come the morning. As I laid in bed trying to sleep the same anxiety found at the party found me. Its voice entirely my own, its message unclear but threatened. Thoughts akin to ‘what are you doing? why are you doing this? you know what this means for us’ kept going through my head. No sense was found or rest for that matter. It was pure ego, thrashing about like a petulant child. It wasn’t nervousness, I have been nervous. This was a defensive energy not a timid or shy energy.

Eventually I would slumber a wee bit and awake the next day race ready. I set my alarm so I had heaps of time to get to the race, this punctuality typical for me. What was atypical was my ability to lazy about with no awareness of the actual time to a point where I was late and had to catch a cab last minute in order to make it in time.

Once in the cab idle chitchat was had about the race and my participation in it, all the while I heard the voices from the night before asking the fear loaded questions in wonderment as to why I was doing this.

I get behind the starting blocks, I am with the fellow racers and the gun goes off.

Being around the other racers does something to you. Yes there are the competitive instincts that come out and make you a better racer, but that is not what I am talking about. There is a validation in sharing the experience or a run with many. Running is a solo endeavor with motivation and discipline entirely self-owned. The reward is all yours.

The first KM brought tears, not sure from what, but cleansing releasing tears. Moving about the other runners and establishing my pace I wasn’t trying to out run them but rather trying to find my rhythm within them. Kids ran next to me playfully and pro runners ran with focused intent. I observed.

Then KM two and three came and I the crowd I ran into was thinner then at the starting block and I found myself focusing on myself. I could hear my breath; I could feel my body working as it had been trained to do the last few months. That is about where ownership of it all found me. I realized that my ability to do what I was doing that moment was all me. I was proud, pride once again had organically found me as it did earlier in the month.

I was picturing what this looked like, from above, from aside etc, the image of me running. I imagined myself negotiating the initial start almost metaphorically like the first set of obstacles found at the start of ones life. I was at the mid point in the race where I had to evaluate my ability to finish and the pace I wished to set for the remainder, again analogous to my current situation off the track. Then the last few KM. You can predict how it’s to finish, you can predict your ability, but it is ultimately unknown. This is something I felt as the path turned into the botanical gardens and I couldn’t see the finish line but I knew it was coming. The crowd on the side rails smiling and encouraging you making you feel safe enough to aggressively pursue that ahead still not seen. Entering the Stadium I crossed the finish line. I had finished my first race.

After hanging about with the other masses of runners for a bit I left the stadium and in the mature robustness of the pre-autumnal sunshine I smiled a smile so full of glee. Pure glee. This glee remained as I walked about the city on my way home with number and participatory medal displayed and people smiled at me acknowledging my sense of accomplishment, indirectly proud of it aware of the discipline needed to complete; their pride icing on my own.

I heard no longer the voices of the day before.

old anger barks loudly

Sitting amongst the discarded sunflower seeds and unsorted scraps of paper inside his truck, we waited for Charles to arrive at the storage locker in order to claim his belongings. A bit about Charles first, and a bit is all you will get as I know very little about the boy myself. Charles was the second hockey player my parents would house during the playoff season and ultimately the second player they would attempt to parent to their liking. The first was Juri a 19 year from Finland. Juri left on his own accord, uncomfortable living there for reasons I can only imagine as I never met the man so won’t speak for him. Regardless his departure was the ultimate betrayal for my parents whom in the end saw him as disloyal and only using them to end up abandoning them. I giggled when mom first told me about his departure and I uttered “Did you think you were going to keep him?! He isn’t a puppy he already had a home”. As expected my inability to see the drama of Juri’s ‘betrayal’ the same way they did was not appreciated and my puppy comment prevented any further dialogue about the lad from Finland ever again.

Then there was Charles. From what I know Charles was not in the need of parental guidance or faux family bond, simply needed a bed and a place to eat; the standard agreement between host family and player. Charles was one of those few that recognize their youth whilst they are in it and play during the period most conducive for it. In other words, he was a young man doing young man things. The lucky bastard. My parents on the other hand saw his age appropriate social development as derailment form the path of the “straight and narrow”. As we sat in the cab I had to listen to my father rage about this boy of 18 years old as if he was darkness personified. “That fuckin ungrateful bastard is late, I said 5:30, he should fucking be here. Brad that fuck is such a waste that one, what a fucking waste” dad barked in the cab. I sat there as Charles pulled up behind us. Completely baffled how this boy made my dad so angry, I attempted to ask him how all this rage was possible but it was too late as he left the cab and proceeded towards Charles car where he allowed the same venomous verbiage he shared with me to be pointed at the source. I could only hear Charles’s voice from afar but did manage to make out him saying “How do you think you can talk to a person like this?!”

We drove into the storage locker compound and opened the locker for Charles and his friend to remove his belonging. When Charles emerged from his car he stood tall and dressed in a playful outfit complete with skater shoes and hat as was his friend; two fun loving boys. This was not a bad person. Like a hungry old eagle my father watched with a predatorial eye awaiting a false move on Charles’s part to allow him to spew venom from his lips once again.

Watching this scene played out almost objectively from the cab of the truck I wondered had the rage become a drug to this man? As he paced back and forth the anxiety-ridden steps of a drug addict anxious for his next fid, I realized he needed to yell to feel sane. I have been on the receiving end of dad’s aggression, though not as extreme as Juri or Charles, I think he knows I don’t have the balls for it, but I know what its like to see the dog bark loudly and for no reason and struggle to calm him down.

The locker was closed and we drove back for dinner. The following morning he drops me off at the airport and the perpetual pouty tears appear as they always do when he drops me off, always suggesting he has more to say but no words to say it. These eyes, like his bark have confused me for years. This time I wondered if the plaintiff look was actually a cry for help? Earlier in the trip I stopped him mid rant and asked sarcastically but with sobriety nonetheless “What’s it like being this angry.” He stopped dead in his tracks.

a not so negative space

I can’t stop smiling. This usually happens post run, but I still had the smirk pre-sneakers. I am so madly in love with my life.

Back in May when the deconstruction began and I surrendered to the path life was forcing me down, giving up the plan I was trying to force life down, I read all this literature speaking of awareness afforded those whom believe glee attracts glee, joy attracts joy etc. This simple metaphysical law was supposed to unlock the key of happiness and calm would be found in the most trying times. I cynically smirked back in May; I now smugly grimace in August. I am a convert.

I find myself at home typing in a den littered with papers and mess. The same mess spills out into the rest of the house fill each room with disorganized chaos. Utter Clutter everywhere. The clutter carries through into the cars, wallets, purses, bags, ultimately arriving in the words and conversation cultivated in those that fail to clean it up. The words exchanged dirty and mean. Random barbs sometimes as to the point as a pile of dead branches and other passive aggressively eroding like that of rotten fruit getting more pungent as time goes on.

I don’t come back to judge, there are more enjoyable ways to spend 700 dollars. But I find it impossible not to. In my early twenties it was my own ego trying to educate my parents in a ‘better and more efficient way’ of being human, be it a new technology or be it a new philosophy I was taste testing. I did this in the unapologetically egocentric earnestly that one does as a cocky twenty-something. Then in my late twenties I started to mellow and circumstance granted me clarity and focused introspection. Instead of preaching I merely informed them of the success I was having on an emotional level and told them how in hopes that they too would see a tool they could handle when cleaning up the mess. Eventually realizing that they were never going to, I decided to work on fostering my own life and leaving them to theirs.

My philosophy today protects that which is positive as I know it fortifies faith. Again I don’t mean to preach, I am flawed. I am not always Mr. Mary Sunshine, but I know it gets easier if this is the doctrine I choose to follow and return to when I find myself thwarted on the path.

At home in Montreal a beautiful tropical house plant elegantly bends towards the four-seasons beautiful mountain, art I made or am inspired by graces the wall, the smell of lime and ginger fills my kitchen and living room where my neatly stacked books and organized shoes prep me for the world outside. It stays clean not because of Windex but because of mindset.

Now when I am back at home looking over the space I was raised in I can’t help feel pity. I don’t want to I really don’t, but it saddens me that they fail to see the space they have and the chaos they chose to contain within it.

if I knew all along, i would have worn a cape

I find myself in a fable or so I have felt since de-planing the aircraft in Saskatoon a mere few days ago. As stated earlier, I was apprehensive for this trip as I was just learning to stand my ground in my own life and was fearful this skill would be too fragile to handle a home coming quite so early. With Dad’s surgery this worry was pushed instantly aside naturally and a plane ticket purchased.

Prior to my arrival my sister and mother had filled my head with this image of dad as fragile and quite ill. Instead a man very much alive greeted me when I picked him up at the hospital after he finished his pre-op procedures and tests. I was relieved. Once in the car he described the surgery he was about to have and I was confused as what he described and what was illustrated in the supporting paperwork the hospital provided was a procedure routine and not as evasive as I was led to believe. Though again relieved that the scope of what was ahead was reduced I was also equally angry and frustrated. Using my biting-down-on-tongue-to-not-rage-nice voice I said to him many times “I am confused, on the phone you said this, you said that etc” and after a few emotionally twinged words he just looked out the window of the car almost as if to ignore me.

I wasn’t about to emotionally attack a man on the eve of an evasive surgery no matter the scope or scale. Yet I was angry for being lied to.

The surgery went smoothly and now the man is on the road to recovery with a few minor disturbances to his mobility. Pending test results, he seems like he will move past this and resume life as normal. For that I am grateful and even though frustrated, I was glad I was here.

Now back to the fable.

Normally when I come home I figuratively go underwater. I wade through the time here with blurred vision and the muffled sounds of a man submersed as it was just easier to handle all the rocky sea on the surface, its volitility for me unmanagable.

This time however I decided to brave the waters above and float to the suface. I am glad I did as I now see and hear everything for what it is and stand with strong sea legs.

My family lives and breaths on the hyperbolic emotive energies and large scale morality battles usually found in the pages of a medieval adventure tale. People are either saints or sinners, and the decisions they make have the corresponding polarity in right and wrongness. “That Doctor is so smart, oh to be that brilliant must be amazing, oh he is simply brilliant you can tell”, “That neighborhood kid, you can just tell he is trouble, I mean he was up till midnight drinking with his buddies making noise, you can just tell he is a trouble maker” etc. They all do this even my younger and world travelled sister; it has nothing to do with age. Collectively they sit and around a meat heavy dinner table and foster the longevity of myths and tales about mere mortals they know. They seem happy so I guess they are not hurting anyone as each one is in on the game.

So why do I care? Well here is the thing, I pay some one 80 dollars a week to work through a childhood that now I see was a living breathing elaboration full of fabrications. They aren’t lies and weren’t lies but rather truths seen through eyes of those in love with legends. I am a man that inherently gravitates towards the authentic and the elegantly simple, I do not like ego and foster no fable in my world intentionally. With this new found observance, instead of getting angry I giggle. I now realize now that the early chapters of my life were as jarring as they were because Dr. Seuss was trying to play with the Lord of the Rings.

sorry, not my stop

I was approached by a stranger looking for directions today while waiting for a metro; a circumstance not atypical in this city.

The stranger was a man in his late sixties, clean and nicely dressed with a watch and jewelry brandishing his wrist and cuff suggesting he is obviously an upstanding citizen from good means. He initially asked what the next station was and I politely informed him thinking it would end there. He asked the question again, and I politely responded again. It was the third time and subsequent fourth, fifth etc, that I clued into the idea that this man was lost and most definitely experience senility in some form.

The train arrived and in we went, I was hoping to lose him in the crowd but he ended up sitting right next me. Even with ipod in and metro noise he still proceeded to talk to me and point at this map. I politely smiled and when his station came up I pointed that this was where he needed to get off. Once told he looked at me as if to say ‘well, aren’t you coming with me to show me how?!’.

Anger arose in me when he looked scared and lost in the door of the train, scared about having to do this alone. I felt some guilt, some ‘I should help him’ kindness but the anger kept me weighted in my seat. Another passenger on the train, a nice young man in his early twenties and with that earnest youthful selflessness asked him if he needed help and ultimately escorted him through the station. Train doors shut and the train sped away.

The elderly man looked back at me as the train sped past him even more confused I wasn’t the one helping navigate his trip ahead. I said under my breath, sorry old man, this isn’t my stop. Mine is up ahead. No clue yet about how the journey will go.

between the two

I just finished eating D’s pear, I never buy pears. It was a left over from an appetizer he made on his Saturday visit with his friends. Seems like ages ago as tonight has spun far too fast to be just a mere day since he left.

My dad has a tumor on his bladder and goes into surgery Friday morning so I will be flying out in the next few days to be there for him.

I don’t know how or where to start this post as I feel I want to share more about D but now my head is on Dad. Tonight I find myself bookended by the men whom seem to manipulate my mind the most.

Lets be chronological about this and start with D.

Sunday was his last day here and it was lazy as we languished about my neighborhood and ultimately my apartment. A nice meal was cooked and conversation peppered the time as it passed patiently. I say peppered, as it was by no means an decadent pour but rather a mere dusting of his world for only in exchange for a slightly larger piece of mine. Made sense as he was on my turf.

There was a moment when we were sitting on our respective sofas post the dinner where he started to ask me questions about my family. Just before I answered one of them I took a pregnant pause to ponder what it was I was about to share. In my fantasy a boyfriend would ask about my family, we would be on the sofa together with dirtied plates and half empty wine glasses on the table. We had the glasses and plates, he asked the question, yet we were on two separate sofas; we were not boyfriends. I knew this from the behavior all weekend. The cold distance, the lack of any interest in physicality etc, I am not dumb. But as I am about to turn 32 and have never shared familial details with any man I have been intimate with I saw the opportunity as a dry run. A dress rehearsal for the actual scene to come that would end in cuddling post spilling the beans. He actively listened and pondered. Felt good, for me. I would be lying if I said “I didn’t care what he thought” but it was not the goal of the exercise.

That night cold distance again and slumber was found rooms apart. The next day he was again all warm and welcoming and I was left once again confused. More confusion would follow. As we walked through the train station he flippantly mentions the possibility of me joining his parents while all three are in town come September. I stopped dead in my tracks for a second, turned back and asked him “They know about me?” “They have known about you since Edmonton, memory like elephants they have” he replied as matter of fact.

The last few minutes passed as we sat by the platform and I was sad. It’s an almost relationship, as close to as I have and I will likely have with him.

His train came and went and I went to therapy and cried it out. The shrink says I should see it as a taste test, a bittersweet taste test but a taste test none the less. I had a man in my space, in my weekend and my life and I hungered for it like baked goods and pretty things behind shop windows. The trick is now to find a vendor that’s open to my business. Once I saw that I ran about the Plateau streets giddy that I had experienced that. I know more then ever what it is I need and what I want. It was a high I felt to my core and I felt strong.

Today I was at work pondering my next steps, resume editing and half assed flipping through work emails when Sis called me to talk about dad. I left work shortly after hearing the news.

I wish I had a grasp on what I am feeling right now as I find it a confused feeling. Confusing in a different vein than the confusion felt all weekend with D. The confusion with D was in my inability to access the man inclusive of the mixed signals. With Dad it’s the opposite. My confusion came from the rage I was feeling towards this ill man when he is in his time of need. I felt every inch the worst son on the planet.

I wasn’t ready to go home yet prior to today’s news, I was going to set my boundaries and delay this trip a few months until my confidence was solidified with a protective shield of esteem. Esteem I was, for lack of a better phrase, ‘taste testing’ finally for the first time in my life. My shrink agreed and I was going to take control.

Then the news.

Now I find myself forced to return not ready yet for not only just a visit but a visit sure to be most demanding on an architecture fragile and newly formed; I worry about its ability to support. I know this isn’t about me, but I am mad. Confused by my rage and ultimately feeling so guilty inside. I know what will happen, i will go home and I will lead again like I always do in that environment, i just worry I won't be able to this time.

Here is where I want to sum this up or connect both stories as I feel the pull and push polarity of both men is no accident or without lesson. Maybe it’s the glass of wine just consumed that is clouding my ability to connect but I sign off somewhere in the middle of the two.

almost fits the space

D is having brunch with a friends as I type this and thank god I as I needed the space to myself. Not that he is the houseguest filled with annoyance but rather the opposite, I love having him in my space, he fits my space.

This morning as he stood in his underwear checking bus times on the computer I had to fight the urge to go over and hung him and caress his beautiful body etc. I fight this urge as in my fantasy he returns the snuggle, kisses me and we have that intimacy that I am dying for, but I know that will not happen.

This weekend we had a fight first; well for me it was a fight, I am sure he just rolled his eyes etc and thought nothing of it but I don’t care I was pissed. Turns out he was in Montreal last weekend for a visit. During his visit he went to the gay village and clubbed with some friends, never once ringing me for a drink or coffee. He is allowed to do that I know, we are a nothing etc but I hate that he kept that a secret. He told me this towards the end of the evening several beers in so no composure was contained on my part. We argued out something crap in the cab ride home. Something unimportant and a mere excuse to argue safely without me using my words. Once returned to our places of slumber, his my bed and mine the futon, I tell him I am pissed at him and I don’t know why and then we sleep.

The next day he joins me for breakfast and its awkward for an hour, the conversation stilted as the drunken elephant sits at the table with us. I don’t want to address it, I can’t address etc, I will move on once he is out of my house. Not sure there will be a visit again.

The day progresses and we shop and enjoy the Mile End neighborhood where he says he loves red heads, and checks out some guy in the street. I don’t register at all to him in that way. Why didn’t I ask him to go right then and there I don’t know.

Once home we have a great conversation in the kitchen while I make cookies, he asks questions, actively listens and I was sharing. It felt good to share. Then an audit of my library was made and we commented on books, he borrowed a few, a few i didn't let out for fear I would never see them again. It was that intellectual ease I long for.

The kicker was the dinner at his friends yesterday night. We dress together and leave together walking through the streets of Montreal with wine and snacks in hand, every image that of a couple going to a dinner party. Once there his friends welcome me and conversation is shared in the most organic way. “I like him" one guest says "he has to come back” and she looks at D for recognition and none is made. I fit in there; we have fun and its natural. Yet as the evening progresses as we were sitting in close proximity several times our toes in socked feet accidentally touch under the table, each time he pulls away as quickly as possible. After several hours of inclusion in his world, if only knee deep, we jacket up and head for home.

Back on the metro there is this coldness, the same coldness as the night before. He makes idle chit chat uncomfortably till he is back home and slumbers. I lay awake an hour staring and wondering what this is, how this is, how I have allowed it again.

Morning comes and we awake again and he is warm like a puppy, asks me if I had fun last night and is all cute and smiles. I type confused.

I love this man I do, and in that I should see a gift. I have fostered emotively a connection to an admirable male. But him not me. And I need it to stop.

from the little

The bully got my back today. He isn’t really a bully but a teddy bear at heart. It’s his professional curtness and aggressive energy that that is analogous for someone less cuddly. Today he had my back.

Much like D and his empathy, when his actions and words spoke selflessly in defense of me I couldn’t speak. I sat there and tears formed and subtly fell. For him it was a professional favor, and for me, well truth be told I have no clue what it was. It healed.

Then later in that day a blog was sent to me from the Texans whom couch surfed at my place a few weeks back. In the text from this recovering couple on a restorative journey was a quote I said; an off the cuff comment made at an impromptu brunch where hardship was discussed. The statement was made and the meal paid and at the time with no anticipation that my flippant comment would resound with such meaning in the ear that heard it.

It’s from our actions that the world spins. Its our phrases and faces that bring in the heal and help sweep out the pain. It’s from the little that big is felt.

words fail

D gets here on Friday and is in town for a few days. I want to type that I have no expectations or ideas about the weekend and am keeping an open mind etc, but that would be a lie.

It would also be a lie if I wrote that I am hoping he will fall madly in love with me and this weekend will be hot sex.

I want for neither so polar yet stand astride both playgrounds each school of thought reside.

He shares with me the other day words of compassion and full acknowledgement of my life circumstance. I recoiled. The statements came across my smart phone and as I read them I could not have felt more retarded, emotionally that is.

It was the first time ever that empathy was offered to me condition free from a man. A man I was intimate with, I man I would say yes to being intimate again.

I live in French Canada, working in an industry I am still so much a newborn in, yet this is the language I have the least many words at my disposable. This infantile lexicon speaks the loudest despite its anorexic state. It speaks, or shouts rather, to the terms I have yet to know.

I love looking forward to this weekend, more words will be taught either way.

walls are down

“Why do you think now you were so affected by pride?” the therapist asks me today as I sit opposite as per usual, unusually content. I couldn’t answer her. I don’t have an answer.

A mere month ago I saw the hordes of lost boys at the first of the city’s prides and wondered where I fit, judge heavily from afar and was constantly kicked in the teeth by my attempt at connecting. The walls were way too high up, any one would judge from up there.

The last few months with their volatility and the people I met that reflected parts of me I needed to see have brought the walls down and humbled me something fierce. I see more love now then not, which new for me. Oh god that sounded gay.

But it’s true. I have noticed lately that the only person still getting away of my hearts desire is me. I provide the punch lines before others have the chance, which is so ironic as seldom do they want to; I am no longer 14. That has to stop. That stops now.

Sunday I watched the floats go by with a crowd I used to feel disconnected with but now comfortably stood amongst. The pride I felt yesterday still lingers and I want to coddle it like a new seedling, as I need it. Fostering its growth within me is my new desire. Of course I want a partner, and I want that connection, but I now realize that the connection cannot be made if I don’t start making one with myself.

At pride I realized I was no better or above anyone there, nor was I a month a go, nor was I years ago. I was more lost then they were. They were chasing their desires, searching for a bond while I was cowardly chasing it in the shadows.

Once the walls crumbled light was let in and once lit I was made aware of the heaps to be proud of. Hard to mock that which stands proudly.

time to pretend

He is supposed to cook me dinner tomorrow, supposed to. He has moved our plans as if it was an outlook meeting twice and is over compensating with the promise of a meal. I am thinking I will cancel on him; I no longer care for him. My friends say things like “give him a chance”, “remember you liked him when you went out”, "he is a nice guy” but I feel nothing but anger about being disrespectfully shelved and wonder is there value in pretending.

Self-help guru calls me and we discuss the idea of being open. She tells me about learned behavior and internal dialogues hinder the openness one needs to let another in. She promises me this can be relearned, I agree out of politeness as it’s her long distance. She ends promising me with her help I can be re-taught to learn to believe a safe place can be built with the help of another even though I have never seen this successfully done the way I would design. Curiously though I wonder is there value in pretending.

Cute young black comedian fills two hours with the defensive youthful misogyny only a closet case burdened by racial expectancy and military upbringing can manifest. We as an audience laugh; he is funny and has the wit and style. Its minute forty I feel sad; he is 26 the crash will happen soon, he is at that age, I know that age. I can’t laugh any more during the show. The audience continues to facilitate his fallacy but again I ask, is there value in pretending.

The comedian said in his show “you turn thirty and you are pretty much who every you are going to be for the rest of your life”. He said it as if aware of it’s approach, fearing his time left to discover all has been book ended. I sit here over discovered and hardened wishing that I will be able to sleep off the fatigue, run out of the sobriety, and just feel glee. But then I ask myself is there any value in pretending.

my balcony

On you I sit allowing me access to them.

Them whom make dinner below as their kids play in the yard. A yard only by definition, the grass carpet they are enjoying is a mere few square feet in size. I wonder as watch them both pet the rabbit contently within their small space when exactly adulthood will take over and cause them to seek glee within a greedier expanse. The hiss of a watering hose is heard as it turns on, splashing the brother and sister team with floods of gleeful giggles and screams. As they sit to eat their conversation is operational. It is full of instructions to either the children encouraging them to eat their dinners, or to each other as they define what is needed to successfully get the kids to sleep tonight. They are in the middle of the race.

Them who are the new and fresh student couple a building over on the second floor that lazily strum a guitar over the sizzle of the barbecue. Their conversation is filled with brainstorming about fall classes and a potential European summer trip and life in general. They are only just starting to run.

As they eat on their balconies below I catch only snippets of the conversations between the staccato clinks of cutlery to plate. The drums from the tam tams are heard in the distance with their rhythmic stamina not yet showing fatigue from today's heat an the occasional car horn honks celebrating Spain’s victory.

The sun is now shining directly from the north, mere moments before it slumbers under the line of the horizon. The evening glow now more akin to a hug as opposed to the aggressive punch to the gut that was today and much of last weeks swelter. I sit and listen to the warm noise.

‎"Half an hour and then its time to get ready for bed" the mother says while winding up the garden hose. I fear I will beat them to it. Just as I ponder this sun leaves and I go inside. The students continue to sip wine and talk.

I love the plateau and my place in it, whatever lap I am on.

pure baser

II sip my espresso sweaty. This last week everything I have done has been sweaty. Montreal is sweaty of late and I am finding the heat and humidity harking back to Rio is so many ways. I find myself expecting to see the site of the blue ocean between the city blocks, flirting with me as I walked about the Montreal streets much the way I did with the Ipanema shops. The ocean smiling a confident grin knowing full well that I would eventually succumb to the seduction with my ass soon on the hot sand amongst the gallery of the sensual.

But there is no ocean and no Gallery. Instead it’s my waking life and not the ten day dream of 7 months ago. Still the heat is bringing Rio to me in that, as I type this at 5 am this Saturday morning I am pure baser. My rational baked right out of me. It takes extreme heat for me to access the freedom to drive on instinct.

Many in the city find themselves bothered by this heat, pulling at their clothes and complaining about their restless slumber. I experience all of those same things but instead in the stickiness I find comfort. Accessing the baser in Rio allowed me to drive the first half of 2010 on gut instinct. As I am fatigued by the freeway full of uncertainty ahead I need the sweat. Fatigued and clammy, this heat assures me of my animal and my intrinsic. People speak of confidence as a bankable resource stored by experience and accomplishment. For me confidence is felt only when I surrender to my animal. With cold soberness the fuel of rational, it is with irony as when I am most analytical I hold the stability of an ice cube.

Happy to continue sweating it out for a bit; the organic condition is grounding.

proud in the park

Gruff and I sat in the park today. We sat in the sun, throwing up the odds and ends of the past while into a stream of conversation that lasted for a few sun soaked hours. I relax with Gruff, I always have. Arty brought Gruff into my life and I thank her for it and I hate her for getting to enjoy him on the levels I will never get to. Around Gruff I feel proud, then I leave Gruff and even the hottest summer day seems that much colder and I am lost.

After the part I headed down into the village to walk through the art I have seen three days in a row now. Beauty by Beaudry I guess makes my playground less threatening so I thought best take advantage of the comfort zone while I still had it as in another week the canvases are gone.

I still see cock in cock out, I have seen this for three years now. People tell me that that’s not the case but I have failed to see it differently and I want so much to see it differently.

Potential Michelangelos use the abstraction of the intertube and sites with ‘hunt’ ‘grinder’ or versions of in the title to find a mate. Then they find one and they speak about the 'hot' cattle on the street with animalistic verbiage right in front of their future husbands, boyfriends etc.

There is no honor, I see no honor, or respect for that matter. Just cock in, cock out.

Its pride month and I am not proud.

with glowing hearts we see the rise

With glowing hearts we see the rise, or so they say. My Canada Day was to start with a picnic; a few friends, a bit of food and the summer sun. As cloud cover soaked our grass dinning room, the plan gave way to the charms of a warm breakfast and a sense of whimsy. When Phylis, Sleepy, Gruff and I get together I feel connected. To what I am not sure, but it’s a connection nonetheless. As a friendship collective the four of us (five when Arty is Back in town) want and chase different things, trade currencies exchanged at different markets and filter life’s refractive circumstances through eyes unique. As diverse as we are, once at the table, picnic or bistro, we web.

The day took a whimsical turn as we ventured through the Plateau Streets littered with the collateral damage of ‘Moving Day’. We decided to Hunt for discarded treasures left on the curb awaiting our love. Found was the random conversation that occurs with such unplanned spelunking, a Chuck Palahniuk novel, my new green 'change dish', three mason jars cum balcony candle holders, and the tiniest of plant pots. Once back at my place, the others with their treasures retired on the sunny balcony a bit before we would head to a pub for a pint and then a bit of tilt and sway down at the Jazz Festival. I just have to be around them and I am calm, right now I need calm. Always I am needing calm. I often wonder if they know that just sitting around their noise renders my anxiety and fear weak. When gruff takes the piss, it’s a hug. When Sleepy gets all nappy its his eternal boy that warms my heart with its innocence. Phylis, just knowing Phylis I have a ‘kind-constant’ that resets my gage when dealing with those whom are not so.

Whimsy played, I returned home back to the balcony alone. The instability in my life right now ripples the stilled moments with anxiety and worry. It’s normal and understandable but sometimes heavy. Tonight it had the potential to out weigh. It did until I decided to take a walk.

Down from St. Denis I went past the restos filled with the unapologetically watchable seductiveness that is the average Montrealer in the summer sun. Even though these people know me as the stranger smiling, I am so grateful to be living in this fantastic city as at least a passive observer in the lives of those that share it. From there Library DVD returned and into the village I went for a quick coffee. Again plan thwarted when I turned down St. Catherine to find the street tented with art. Ipod off and a quick stop became a much-needed meander around so many things pretty.

In the corner of one the tents, three prints spoke to me, as did the charming artist as she spoke as her creative pathology. “I just got fed up with waiting she said, art is what I do, it was time for me to step up and speak my voice” she said hand on hip, stance strong. The aesthetic as it hangs on my wall will always remind me of her pride at her work, her voice.

Art in hand I went into American Apparel to see if they had the new BUTT inspired towels, they did. I know this as this lithe sparkled eyed beautiful boy showed me where they were and once there a conversation about all things photography occurred. A conversation i have been dying to have with anyone. Sure to be younger then me by years, the chemistry over road the age difference. Smiles were shared and again I found myself in that awkward place where I have to do the asking. I wanted to do the asking but words failed me. Chatting to the beautiful boy was enough for tonight but just barely. I left for home out on the street under the cotton candy colored summer evening sky frustrated for not being able to say what I wanted to.

I am keen to foster my glowing heart a bit more as its fast becoming clear that in doing so i will see the rise soon.