Varadero

Havana

New Hair

Boat People

Broken finger and all...

Ah, camping

welcome baby cohen!!

an ode to green, my friend, the magician.
things that make me feel green:
albuquerque
chris
about the moon

home
sweet
home
sweet

rarest

For some time I had imagined that you could mix senses. By that I mean that I assumed that our sensory experiences collided and merged and ... fused at a level precious enough to override the strict rules hemming them in. Have you ever smelled a taste or visualized a sound? I remember the revelation I had, while sitting on the carpeted floor of our wood-paneled living room in, oh, let's say...1981. The channel of fuzz, the channel of snow. My leg was asleep and I was staring at this fuzzy snow thinking how remarkably similar this sight and sensation seemed to me, somewhere underneath the rock underneath the tree in the primeval pureness of my pre-jaded juvenile mind. My mother, a competitive swimmer back in her day, used to swear by an expensive salon conditioner meant to reduce the chlorine residue scorned by so many of her ilk. To this day I can conjure the smell of this conditioner as it approximated in my childish mind the exact taste and sensation of a refreshing can of Orange Crush consumed directly after a relaxed summer afternoon spent running through the sprinkler positioned devilishly on our newly shorn back lawn.

Ok, listen. Here's what I think. I think that the time has come for everyone to take a good, long, hard look at relativity. Einstein is not involved in this discussion. You. How hard is your life? Do you have any right to complain? If you have energy, and I am presuming that you do, how should you best expend it? Well, that is up to you...But I am asking that you weigh in at the end of the day...Let's dare to assume that you are the master of your domain, that you are the king of your castle. Is that an outrageous assumption? You choose your behaviour, you choose your reaction, you choose your control...But really, we all have 100% control over our behaviour, no? Ah....but with that decision comes responsibility, there's the rub! I say rub it! Fuck it! Take that responsibility like it was the last chance you ever had to prove that you deserve to exist in this world of muddy hopes and dreams! Own it like a million dollars!

What would Neil do?

Everybody's going out and having fun...I'm a fool for staying home and having none...
Yes, Neil, I think you may have been perfect. Fancy free? Well, I'm not so sure. I guess back then, in the day, trees were greener and air was stronger. Time was slower and hair longer. The moon was blue and wind was cold. Don't let it bring you down.

try, and you may

For the time being, I can handle it. But I'm not so sure about the way. Which way? The future burns brightly, but it does not exist. Now is all that really ever is. No pressure.

Can you believe the audacity of one who would ask this question of a reader of literature?

Question: Is a story satisfactory if it presents a riddle and then withholds the means of solving it?

Is this not the essence of the life experience? Isn't this the feeling that you should have when you read? I implore you.

more time

i love you kitty cat!

as small as a world and as large as alone

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

- e.e. cummings

a few pennies more

Would you buy a penny for a penny? Even if it was 'odd'?
Would you pay more? A penny seems so unbelievably small to me...what can a penny do for you? If you need to collect one hundred of them to give yourself a dollar, and you can't buy much at all for a dollar (except maybe half a load of laundry in the washer), what role does the penny even have anymore? Have you ever dropped a penny and not even bothered to pick it up because it is so worthless? Have you ever seen a lucky penny on the ground and decided that it is not worth the energy expended to bend down and pick it up? I feel bad for the pennies. But I am embarrassed to pick them up. Aaron always picks them up. "One penny closer to Cuba!", he will say. Every time. I am so lucky to be so close to such a person.

that time, outside

I think the nightly ritual of going for a walk, a slow and aimless walk, has sadly lost its significance to the jaded, fast-moving city folk. My mom's family always invested a great deal of energy on the evening walk. It seemed like a waste of time to me at the time, but looking at it now I see that it was anything but. To get various generations of a family to spend time together, outside, without any form of meddling, artifical influence is a feat that I now believe may be somewhat impossible. These walks took place on farms and in mountain communities and involved grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, cats and dogs. Mostly I remember how the air smelled and how the grass felt, either dry or cool on the evening of a hot summer day, depending on the province this took place in. I remember pounding the dirt, ground with my feet - by this I mean to emphasize the lack of concrete - and not worrying about dirt or bugs or dog slobber or school or anything. It's amazing how those elements - air, earth, sun, sky, stars, the smell and colour of the moment when you can't tell if it is still light or almost dark - are the only things I can understand as timeless. This experience only exists in an urban setting in an extremely muted and astoundingly less awe-inspiring way. I heartbreakingly realize every day that even if I wanted to try to re-create those moments, the people and places that hold them together are long gone.