When the Cows Come Home (part 2) ... DP, PEI, Rissers
“Every place that I imprint on has some memory of someone.
Someone known. Someone remembered.
The feeling that I have been here before, and I was not alone.
Here, it was you I think. What a privilege to have felt that with you next to me.
We have been here before. In another life, we are still there.
I think we are happy. In that life too.
And it’s a privilege to know, that in another reality, somehow loosely tethered to this one,
we love each other too.
To the endless realities.”
June 12, 2023
7:03AM Lunenburg NS
Week 3.
The ability to forget. Superpowers. Sleeping, restarting, forgetting, letting go.
”Today is another day I will remember.” We just need a few mementos. Splash of waves on the dock. Boat hitting against wood. The breeze and rays of sporadic sunlight. NS 500. DP Summer. Fizz. Moonlight cola. Leeky. Terror and love. Uke sunset. Smell of kitchen, symphony and dance, swirling harmony in a tiny square. Our daily live choreography. Cheers.
Let’s watch “something”
Let’s go on a walk
Let’s music
“I’m going to miss living with you.”
Going to miss.
”It’s going to be strange.”
Going to be new normals. Strangely normal, everything precious, being here and now and already gone. We walk out the front steps. And wow. Still here. Still now. Wow. Peach and blueberry. Wow. A little courage. A little courage to trust in others.
11:13AM Gaff Point, Hirtle’s Beach
We were here.
me 2
I love you.
me 2
Together in solitude. Distance in sound, imagined, missed. Dimensions creaking, thud, rustle, crunch, crinkle, thud. Wash of depth, echo, uninterrupted, barely by oneself. If it’s possible, to hear, just sit. Creaking waddle, tall trees whispering, branches snap, voices imagined, ground breathes, murmurs.
Junen 13, 2023
7:47AM Lunenburg NS
Grains of sand sparkling on hands like universes, colours glittering, crystals, salt, diamonds, the whole universe in grains of sand.
4am birds.
The panic, no, empty defeat of skipping a meal contrasted with what is gained instead in spirit nourishment, the red sun, the wings of clouds, that sunset on the dock, the mania, chaos, absurdity in our laughter, hands holding plastic cups of iced frizzy rosé bouncing back and forth up and down that same street, wandering, unable to decide, getting lost before finding where we need to be.
Stories here and there.
Music here and there.
Sound of the waves, texture of sand, icy ocean water, cartwheels, spinning, sprinting. A rabbit. Another. A stone house. A daze, being in the moment and forgetting all else.
Together in solitude.
How charming it is when we all listen. That’s all right? This demand for uninterrupted attention. So we tune in, notice. Love. It takes energy, it’s intense, it can be uncomfortable, but it’s deeply moving, awing, powerful.
To not place melodramatic distance between us all.
To not sentimentalize the connection between us all.
Simply, we are here.
Getting it, not getting it. Acting, searching. Being quiet with our ungraspable selves.
June 14, 2023
9:03AM Lunenburg NS
It’s a privilege to have someone to love
to share with.
That’s all.
Thank you.
June 15, 2023
6:58AM Lunenburg
30 min fried rice. 6am.
You’re right, it’s strange.
I miss it.
The music is still coursing through my veins.
What can we say except
‘wow, what a day’.
Do you feel empty?
DO you feel the heat?
Do you remember
the moments in between.
Last episode.
New episode.
Da Capo :||
Our tree.
“Wanting to start again” Tree.
We told them stories.
We did console them, dear Stupud.
We done well.
June 16, 2023
6:55AM North Rustico, PEI
Strawberry. Banana. Black sesame.
Coffee, pistachios, peanut butter chocolate.
Pádraig Ó Tuama. Birdsongs, distant waves. Mist suspending the land across in tender stillness. Sweet and strong, busy and patient. Green-brown-red. Little houses perched on little hills.
Looking closely, gentle motion in the water, reflecting back blurry grey skies. Skies indiscernable from water.
The simplicity, wildness we unleash.
Foolish abandon.
Rust, decay alongside red pink rocks. Cocoa powder sand. Warm lights inside the windows, spinning above the lighthouse.
We are guarded by lightkeepers.
3 drinks. 2 lbs mussels, boobs and chatter and laughter, soundtrack of anime, wounded birds, motion sickness still pounding inside our eardrums. Marching forward with a derpy determination. Little Boji. Treating ourselves to eat well. Live well. Wantig.
Halibut, chicken, vegetables.
Allowing want.
Chocolate torte and ice-cream.
Why are you always full? Why is there always too much food? Why have we always eaten too much?
Such a tease, this wanting and constraint.
When can we not feel ‘guilty’ for pleasures. What is so guilty about pleasures. Just pleasure, proud pleasures.
My body represents my love of living. My commitment to living fully.
I love sleeping with a satisfied stomach.
Holding back and letting go. A dangerous game, as always. And this time, did we half succeed? Cartwheel, spin, crawl, climb. Hop hop hop.
June 18, 2023
Lunenburg NS 7:38AM
Yes, we can reflect and remember afterwards. But how much escapes us so quickly after we experience. Perception of the density and expanse of time.
Driving, driving. Fog, sun, wind, rain. Rolling, rolling hills. Wow. Wow. WOW.
Kindred spirits.
We’ve felt a lot.
Even when we’re taking making space, we feel a lot. Too much? Is it constantly pushing against too much feeling? Even the most quiet pleasant calm beautiful blissful moments become emotional exhausting.
Then the awe, the joy, the happiness of the green and the cows and smell of pines and symphony of ocean waves - then is that overwhelming too?
What we laugh over afterwards.
Caesar bigger than my head. Coffee + baileys. The subway stop. Rain, searching for food, microwave steak. Hotel room feast - cup wine and loaded potatoes. Bob’s Burgers. Haunted Woods. No order. “Stuff recollected” … in no particular order.
So many cows.
Starbucks in the car. Nap. Fog. Back home to a town we know. Town with an Ocean View. Errands, chores. Wandering in a thrift store. A cow falling on your head. Groceries.
Tired, still?
What we love to do, and how we rest. How does your infinite heart find rest? Is rest feeling or unfeeling?
Remember when we made music?
Are the melodies leaving now.
Bye, till next time. Remember you soon.
It’s like having an epic cry.
The pouring rain.
Roaring thunder that lasts 20 bursting strides.Jumping into streams and puddles
like a child
Soaked from sneakers to bones
the exuberant joy
in this shower on the earth
leaping flying heart
openingWarm, drenched, glimmering life
soundtrack wild, eyes blurry clear
laugh out loudno need for tear drops
it pours
pours
Suspend disbelief
Thanks for reminding me that you love me.
I’m stupud and forget important things.
Last but not least
June 19, 2023
7:06AM Lunenburg
Hot and cold.
I want to keep you company. I want to foster and feed the enthusiasm, the joy, the wanting of sharing, living. But perhaps subconsciously, I am preparing. For the next normal.
Though, even cold turkey I do fine.
But last night, head woozy, light waning, just the peace of my own thoughts and voice, uninterrupted, undistracted by chaos, tangents, even if they are creative hilarious energies … was rather pleasant.
Beethoven. Miyazaki. Tree. Totoro. We’re showered with gifts, good food, good drink, great company. We celebrate the music.
This is the last week.
”A weak body does not equal a weak mind.” Is that true?
At heart we’re not a day over 17. Still flirting in the parking lot after school.
If we took just one selfie then.
Is there some kind of resentment in the happiness?
“Today, I want to tell you
Thanks
for putting up with my moodiness.
My slow, draining emptiness.I know it’s not easy.
Yet
You let me have me
and you still show me you’re there.But hey, just in case.
One of these days
You demand me to be
something, to
show up. To come
back. To
live. To also
hold your despondency, paralysis, whatever.I’m there.
“I don’t need anything from you.” What a cold thing to say.
Actually
maybe I need a good slap in the face.
See, if you want to know me, you can find me here.
June 20, 2023
6:32AM Lunenburg
I think about you a lot.
The way you’re a role model. A light, an inspiration, a curious mystery, a surprise, a consistency in showing up and putting others ahead so instinctively. And. The way your energy can irritate or overwhelm me, the way your enthusiasm and 360-degree view of the world can make me lose my patience. The way you let me be moody, silent, void, annoyed, stupud.
We don’t idolize each other.
But we love each other still with the utmost awe and respect.
It’s hard to figure out how to come to a closure in this blessed space. How do we continue? I guess there isn’t much to it. Just keep going, staying true, humble, trusting space to space.
We have to be with ourselves most of the time.
I like heat. I like ice.
Let’s go. Do a long yoga. Read a book. Walk and walk and walk forever. Outside. Wander. Not knowing.
This is home. That is home.
We’re together when we’re together.
I’ve gotten so resilient because of you, still, after all these years. A warrior. Loving warrior. Fearless. Cold and burning. Blazing through hearts.
And I can be kind.
I choose kindness. They said.
June 21, 2023
6:42AM Lunenburg
What a(nother) day.
”When the cows come home.”
When? Then?
Ottawa - Winston-Salem - Le Have.
Pumpkin. Pumpkin butter, a photo graph of west Calgary in frosty cornfields and a Rockies backdrop - the cars on the freeway - like I could see us, inside. Dad Darvn I, perhaps in some soul-sucking heavy foreboding cloud, some screaming silence, staring out to those fields we know so well, how beautiful, the tears rush - our heart is still forever always in the winter landscape of western Canada. Edge of prairies and mountains. That space, that nostalgia, that pain that represents thee eternal infinite hope to start over and over again by going on. Driving. Continuing. Existing.
Let’s go on a camping trip.
Like we always did.
Our hearts are just tender children’s hearts. Too big for this small body, too sweet, too pure, too wanting still of love. That’s all. That image.
And then, of course, we come back to the company we are blessed to share in the present. Being here now. Crescent beach. Sharing a blanket. Houses we point to, that one we want, no that one. Houses we could build. Beach, forest, wetlands, ocean, grass swaying to create infinite variations of shadows and waves. The green. The cows coming over the hills.
Kombucha, dill pickle sunflower seeds, icecream at the gallery. Badminton with a torn birdie. Dreams of alternate lives. In brief moments existing in other universes.
Toes in the memory foam sand. Pressing into the images of our footsteps.
The joy, springing into air, sun peaking in and out. Another cartwheel. Laughter. Glitter on our skin.
Waking up fuzzy hearted
That’s what I wanted to write:
my hair still smells like sweet smoke
June 22, 2023
7:06AM Lunenburg NS
Sequence.
Framework, pattern, limitations to allow us to move. Get back in. Find a rhythm.
Eyes closed, and you’re at once both underwater and in outer space. Dark yet kaleidescopic. Whales and ancient languages. AI voices, computers, metal, strings, gurgling ocean, fracturing realities.
It’s almost addictive. Wanting to hear that again.
The sustain. Of that ending.
Over and over again. Refusing to end. The willpower. Of that bottled universe. All those bottled universes.
Colours bouncing everywhere.
From across the harbour to inside the kitchen to between the pizzicato. The stillness of water and the crackling of fire.Glimmering red lights in the far distance, slow sway of tree tops, warm heavy blanket on our legs, a ‘summer’ cocktail, UFO, voices of people lulling, a kind of different symphony- old, good-humoured, kind, “normal”. Normal people. Normal gatherings. Extra-ordinary normal.
Our mornings here. New wanderings. Kiji’s Jiji, sandwich on dock, bleeding, mouth, nose, Gin Rum berries. Music, work, sitting and sipping the Lobster.
Being nonsensical.
Who gets us?"
“It’s not about wanting to be somewhere else.” Yet, missing. There. Her.
June 23, 2023
7:16AM Lunenburg NS
Strings backstage - the warm up party. That silliness. Randomness. Foolish childish derping. Camaraderie.
I remember. One of my favourite parts of existing amongst this collective. Being a part of this little canon. Chamber of sounds.
Random cat videos, sight-reading on the floor, laughing, eating sandwiches and chips, talking about anything everything, people’s inner playfulness untethered. This kind of simple unremarkable most precious moment of sharing, friendship, being the story here.
These are also moments I treasure.
The late night drive. Soft voices, no soundtrack, no streetlamps, charging forward into the void with the occasional blinding highbeams. Silences. Company. Thoughts floating between, understandings, connections. Laughter. So many beautiful sincere endearing laughs. From all these relations.
“Core memory.” Shelbourne.
Gas station. Yacht club.
Time sometimes in the most ‘mundane’ moments - that’s what binds us. The small links.
Favourite movies. Film scores. Telepathy. “Ancient language.” You know, they know, we heard. Thanks to your sacrifice as a vessel. A facilitator. Us too. Here, little people. Driving into void.
Still laughing and kicking.
”Better than perfect.”
June 24, 2023
7:01 AM Lunenburg NS
Bare feet on blue rocks. They really are blue. Reflecting the glimmer of sunlight, deep hidden blue within layers. The clarity of particles there in the water, the sky, the soft glow of coastline and floating islands and this secrecy of some kind of simple peace.
Naked skin nourished by sunlight.
Massage of the rugged rocks.
Blood with blood, it doesn’t even matter whose.
Downward dog, upside down Skye. A skeleton a heart. One step at a time we can go so so far.
“Burnt out.” Ha. Constantly? In this state?
All we’ve done is feel, joy and beauty and so called ‘pain’, longing, nostalgia, whatever. Napping on a sailboat, walking on boardwalk, stargazing on beach. Occasionally ‘working’, making music, making food. All these privileges, and just feeling, feeling so much becomes our burn out. Exhaustion. Fucking artist. First world problems as we drink our cocktails and talk about how tired we are. Oh but the mind is worn and it’s been a long 4 weeks.
Indeed.
So many friends, so many emotions. Wow. Poor us.
It’s infuriating. Even if I understand the body still gets tired, everyone has problems. Be kind to feelings.
But I’m not burnt out. I don’t say there’s no time, no energy, no space to do what we want.
There is all the restorative energy. There is all the time. Blessed and nurtured. Don’t turn happiness into a burden. Such a heavy heart. Allow feelings is not distorting them to be out of proportion.
The after party - Kejimkujik, Peggy’s Cove, Halifax
June 25, 2023
6:50AM Lunenburg NS
It’s time.
It’s definitely time to step back, forwards into the other worlds - not that it’s stagnant or overly ‘blissful’ here. But we’ve had hell of a run. Everyday, endless moments to be grateful, awed, at peace, loved.
And now we embrace the next chapter.
Was there some kind of growth this time? I wonder.
Was I more challenged in solitude?
But instead, this kind of camaraderie.
To have just one person. Your person, who so deeply inexplicably gets you. Who you can always turn to, fall back on, confide in. That’s a kind of unusual privilege you’re not accustomed to.
“Best friends.”
Cows.
Together in solitude.
Watching out for each other. Even while giving distance and space, remembering, knowing, understanding, the ‘inside’ jokes, glances, gestures, smirks, laughter, the communications that needs no translation.
A feast.
Our dance smoother, more in sync. In the kitchen, the concert hall, in life. BBQ, veggies, tapas, mixed drinks, improvisations, Kdrama, crunchy textures, abundant spices, fluffy rice.
Rose sea salt coffee moonshine soaked cherry browines. LMH.
Celebration of a time, an era, here. This June of 2023, we shall remember.
We’ve done well.
We’ve done so well to live our promises.
Thank you, a million times over.
