just when i am settled back in to life on the east coast, i have to ship myself out west again. this time to portland, oregon. i’m hoping i might be able to see the sun while i’m out there, but i don’t want to hope for too much.
pictures and updates upon my return.
for me, it isn’t spring until my parent’s fruit trees say so, and this weekend, they were certainly talking.
the bradford pear trees and the cherry tree were filled with blooms, and, thanks to the late-day sun, my sister and i managed to capture a few with our cameras.
spring is a magical season and a fitting complement to autumn. it makes sense that they are my favourite times of year, the transitions, the awakening.
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
i just reconnected with two different people from my past today. one person i haven’t seen since her wedding in 1999 and the other i haven’t seen since a dinner together in 2004. i consider these people to be two of the most caring, honest and overall good people that i’ve ever known. i can’t believe i let them slip so effortlessly out of my life.
it’s strange to think how much has happened in the nine and four years since i’ve seen these people. i am certainly at a very different place in my life and i’m sure the same is true for each of them. what i do know for sure is that, despite time and distance, we are still connected on a fundamental level. they are my friends as much today as they were yesterday and i am a better person for having known them both.
it wasn’t surprising that the words came easy today.
i can sum up my first visit to seattle in a few words: coffee, rain, seafood, space needle.
translation: i love seattle.
seriously, i do. i spent hours exploring the city by foot and i enjoyed every moment, every block, every store and every restaurant i found. i can’t wait to go back.
when i pick up a new book, the first thing i do is flip to the last page and read the final paragraph. the great gatsby came to me in ms. chalmers 11th grade AP english class and i knew the moment i read the final words that it was something very special.
“so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”
over the years, i’ve considered the great gatsby to be my favourite book — a tragic story of love and loss woven together in the age of jazz. but my love of gatsby went further than just the story, i became fascinated by the man behind the words, the author, f. scott fitzgerald.
“show me a hero and i’ll write you a tragedy”
today i received a treasure. today i received a 1925 first edition, first printing of the great gatsby. to say this is a rare find is an understatement. to say that i’ve wanted this for many years is also an understatement.
i can’t tell you exactly why this book means so much to me, it just does. it’s a piece of the past, with its delicately yellowed pages and its history of unknown readers, and somehow, it makes me feel closer to mr. fitzgerald and mr. gatsby. and that makes me happy.
when i was 10 years old, my family moved into a new house in a new neighborhood. right across the street was another new house and another new family with a daughter one year older than me. we became fast friends.
this girl, D, was unlike any friend i had known before. she was into science and architecture and design and all the things i was learning to love. we spent endless nights that first summer laying in the grass looking up at the stars and wondering about the mysteries of the universe. we did science experiments and captured bugs to look at under the microscope and designed buildings. we read books and encyclopedias and traveled to exotic lands in our minds. we connected on a deeply intellectual level. and then there was our love of the paranormal.
ghosts, spirits, ouiji boards, telepathy, ESP, the list went on and on. we would stay up all night solving mysteries and playing clue. and then we found another use for the clue cards. without looking, we would randomly put one card into the solution envelope and then we would try to ‘guess’ the card. we would each write our guess down on a paper and then share them with each other before revealing the card. i think the accuracy of our guesses was on par with the rest of the population, with the exception of one card, mrs. white. whenever that card was in the envelope, we both guessed it correctly. we also never guessed mrs. white without that card actually being in the envelope. it was strange and seemed to us to be more than just a coincidence. it was the beginning.
from clue cards, we moved to playing cards. we also changed our procedure. instead of both guessing the card, one of us would randomly select a card, look at it, and then try to mentally ’send’ that card to the other person. our guesses were mostly wrong, but again there was one exception, face cards. whenever a face card was chosen, the other person always guessed that it was a face card. it wasn’t necessarily the correct suit, but it was always a face card. we started noticing the trend and we were convinced that we were able to make occasional telepathic connections.
from there, explorations and experimentations into our telepathic abilities occupied most of our time. we ditched the cards altogether and concentrated our efforts on sending each other ideas — colours, animals, things. it was almost like we were building our own language without words. and it worked.
one particular moment will always stand out in my mind. D and i were sitting on my front porch swing. she was facing my house and i was facing the street. we weren’t talking, we were just enjoying the sun and the breeze of a spring afternoon. i remember thinking that the sky was the most beautiful shade of periwinkle. at almost the same moment, D said, “periwinkle.”
i turned to look at her and said, “what did you just say?”
“oh, i don’t know. i think i said, ‘periwinkle,’ but i don’t know why,” D replied.
i smiled. “that’s what i was just thinking,” i said.
she smiled back, “i guess that makes perfect sense.”
and it did. we expected no less. that was a magic summer, the likes of which i haven’t experienced since. we eventually grew apart and lost the connection that held us so closely together that year, but i will never forget that summer and somehow i know that she won’t either.
my building was constructed in 1969, and my bathroom is an original. it has a sink like none i’ve ever seen before. imagine a white cast iron sink nestled into a strangely coloured, faux marble laminate counter, resting atop two skinny metal legs. it looks like an awkward teenager or a strange creature that is rumored to live in the back woods of appalachia.
after a year of cohabitation, i am happy to report that my 1969 sink is retiring, thanks to a generous tax return from uncle sam.
here are the before photos:
please don’t be sad, the sink has had a good life and i’ve heard that all good sinks go to heaven.
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