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.