impressions of nineteen
In which I, yes, stare at the navel a little bit.
I'm waiting for pizza in the festival line when the clock strikes midnight. We're sweaty, tired, and ecstatic all the same. Greasy cheese becomes a delicacy.
K comes back from the washroom and I show her the time. Nineteen, I say with a shrug. She says the standard congratulations, and we wander home through residential Budapest.
i.
The window is open, breezy, smelling of the last traces of summer, and I'm all alone once again. Everything in my new room has found its rightful place, and all I need to do is take it in. After a whirlwind summer filled with tears of despair which turned into joy with the passing months, it's odd to be back where it all started again, ready for round two.
I never sit still for that long, though, not when there's months to catch up on. Letters had been passed, of course. Updates written on kraft paper, lino prints, pressed flowers; little pieces of our homes back and forth. The written word is one of the greatest joys I have, but nothing beats the real thing.
Christening my cutting board, my bowls inherited from my grandmother, my forks, my desk, and my new home with the presence of one of my greatest friends at school. We dine like kings at my plastic desk, dropping olive oil and feta crumbs on my cutting mat which has already been marred by the trials of first-year studio. It can take a little dressing to boot.
We trail downtown after christening my dish soap for music and drinks, and every person I pass is a new, hey, I'm back, how are you, see you around! I realize school is becoming as much of a home as my original one is, and it's scary yet comforting all the same.
ii.
Pop fly to the outfield, caught, faces drop, the screen goes black. Blue Jays out, Canada slumps in familiar disappointment once again.
I'm at some party somewhere on the St. Laurent strip, dressed as Pippi Longstocking and sobbing on the floor. My friends console me with coolers and promises of dancing up the street at Barbossa, also known as heaven on Earth. It feels akin to cooing Treat? Walk? to your dog, and I lap it up.
After spending some reprieve time on the curb outside lamenting to friends and family on the phone, all while they're apologizing as if I was in the dugout myself, we make our pilgrimage northbound, determined not to let the folies of Toronto sports ruin Halloween in Montreal.
Barbossa is a wonderland of the most stylish and fun people, a place that I always yearn for when I'm on any other more miserable dance floor, of which there are countless. In previous stints here, we've run into several characters, including but not limited to: half of our fellow high school alumni (for better or worse), a man who looked suspiciously like Tobey Maguire, and, my personal favourite, a DJ who found a way to sneak all of RuPaul's discography into his set.
This time, the roster begins before we even reach the door. Two girls who are painted blue from head to toe straighten out my crooked wired braids, and furrow their brows when I tell them I'm Pippi. At least she's from planet Earth! Now freshened up, we leave our new extraterrestrial friends and hit the floor, as was promised to me while I was still in a pile on the ground.
At a crisp 2 or 3, we exhaust the floor and head for the city bikes. It is in moments like these where I count my blessings. We circle around and around the McGill campus until we crave nothing more but bed. Well, couch for me.
iii.
My bed is crumpled, my early coffee is on my window sill, chilled from the first snow. Cream light scatters on my felt bulletins, command stripped to the ugly blue wall, nothing compared to the gorgeous cobalt of the late fall sunset. I've made this dorm a home.
I've been on the other line with Europe for coming on 4 hours now, and the words keep streaming out. I feel eerily grown, I feel like a kid again. We rehash the events of the, how long has it been this time, year? When I picked up, the sun was shining in and I was basking in it, that late afternoon heat. Soon, I see myself dim in the little square, and reach for the lamp. On the other end, it stays the same artificial bright as the night crawls on into early morning.
When the words get too choked up, I smile tight-lipped at the camera, and imagine how much easier this would be if the phone wasn't the only conduit. My no doubt hungry roommate knocks on the wall at this silent signal, 5 more minutes I shout. This feels like one of the most important conversations of my life, and I hesitate to get to the point because it means the moment will have to come to an end.
Dinner comes, and the moment begins its infinite rehashing.
iv.
It's black outside when we haul over the fabric strips and grommet gun and speaker and weary selves to the pit. Dumping it all out onto the wooden ledge, we assess the situation. 2 weeks, about 200 pieces, 4 hands.
The characters of the after-hours are fascinating. People come and go by the piano, playing right over our music, and I'm constantly running up and down stealing goodies from the second-years, my people.
Someone had told me earlier that year that I was something of a gremlin of the architecture school, due to my nocturnal and generally loud nature. Clicky shoes, piano playing, I make my presence known. I take it in stride, and figure that someone has to bring the life to the school when no one else is around to do it.
It takes a village, and my baby is my art. I amalgamate a sweatshop of trusted, slightly naive friends, to punch holes, weave, roll me around on the pinboards to reach (which most certainly would be a violation in operating hours), and create the beast.
It's my best work yet, but I'll figure out how to top it someday, I'm sure of it. Extra hands make the world go around.
v.
I'm braving harsh Halifax winds in a borrowed hat. A fuzzy little number with two strings to tie the ears together in the front like a bonnet. The sun is setting on my first day out east, and we're off to dinner. Everything seems to be in a perpetual lull in this place. People stroll at half the pace, and wind chimes jingle from nearly every porch as the ocean breeze trickles its way inland.
I'm struggling to differentiate if the warm lighting in Halifax can be attributed to the real-life cozy atmosphere, the golden glow against slush in the nooks below windows, or my own romanticisms. While some signs lead to the obvious: crooked, wood-plank houses with their pink and blue paint jobs, there’s something so riveting about a new checkmark on the list of picturesque, if not a little Lynchian towns to visit.
There's quirks to any city that one can only learn through trial and error, and I am blessed with the greatest tour guides friendship can buy. They give you free rolls every time, I'm told as I eat only the roll I ordered at the shoebox sushi restaurant they frequent every Thursday. Sure. I'm skeptical. Tell me sweet nothings and tales of bountiful sushi, but I'm no fool.
I promptly eat my own doubts when the uninvited but all too welcome yam rolls slide onto the table wordlessly, save for our thank you shouted into the air as the server trails away. They know what they're doing.
I conclude that the inexplicable warmth despite the freezing nighttime air is chock full of my romanticisms, and they’re what make any Canadian winter survivable.
vi.
D and I are sipping lattes and white wine at the same time, picking at apple pies. We're susceptible to the treats, and that's what makes our time together so much fun. After we finish these, we will order French fries at one in the morning and be all the better for it.
She's studying, and I'm absentmindedly sketching the cafe, surveying the clientele of this ancient Eden. Couples are hunched over candles, fingers intertwined. Two older women are cackling and speaking in such quick Greek that I would only pick it up if I was raised in the village. A couple of men our age are sprawled out on iron-wrought chairs as if they owned this place. They will leave at closing time like the rest of us.
Hard workers inspire me. Curious people hook me. You are who you surround yourself by. I'm carrying three books she bought me as thanks for covered dinners, and that's the way I like it. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. I'll get this one, and she'll get us home, where we will sleep back to back in her twin bed. It beats paying for accommodation, and she's an exceedingly gracious host.
My phone buzzes from the wooden bench below my legs which I have thrown up to rest. European turned American once again, my line is hot. D laughs to herself when I pull my phone out now, as it's so uncharacteristic of me to be glued to it unless there's someone waiting for me on the other end. This time, she's zoned in on her classics, pencils and highlighters and typing, and I'm free to melt into sweet conversation.
When we wander back, I notice how the streets echo laughter, life, even in the middle of the night. There's something so enticing to me about a life where my natural nocturnal state is welcome, cherished, possible. I take it as a push for the hopeful future, and we go underground.
The line has been closed, and life is the same. Well, almost the same.
Same old coffee; almost the same sheets. I replaced my now browned sheets, victimized by my morning routine, with crisp white ones, no doubt bound to the same fate.
Same old crossword; almost the same game. Turns out it gets a lot more fun when you have someone else to deliberate answers with, and a lot harder when someone's watching you struggle when you would've given up and googled it ten minutes ago.
I have a midterm review for studio, and the time is closing in on me. No matter the struggle, though, my morning routine is one thing that can't be messed with. I've really found my groove here, and in the infamously chaotic lifestyle that this degree grants me, I've found solace. I know when the laundry gets done, I know the exact amount of cups I can get out of the last crumbs of my coffee bag, and I know just what spot on the bed I settle into best.
It's the same as it ever was, well, almost the same. Just for this while.
viii.
It’s a redo of last night, with all of the same supplies. The pier was chilly, and the water ebbed and flowed under us with just enough harshness to make the dry wooden boards creak on every beat. That’s not to say it wasn’t beautiful despite the residual frost of the eastern winter. The stars are so much brighter out here, more than I’ve ever seen at home or at school. The night is darker, and the birds chirp louder. Nature seems to sit on its rightful throne here, unlike the city where we’ve corralled it to parcels of manmade land.
Today, everything’s different. We’re wrapped in a fuzzy blanket, and I’m sketching the sparkling river in front of us while poetry is being silently read to my right. Occasionally, I’m made to put my pencil down and listen to ones that are particularly resonant. In moments like these, the ones I’ll be kicking myself for forgetting details about later, I write in my journal even while others are around. In dire situations, shame is thrown to the side. All I can do is angle my body away so as to hide the words I write on the page.
As the sun sighs out its last breath, turning bright blue into navy, we rise against its rest. We didn’t wander too far from the beaten path. We follow our steps back to the bridge we crossed some few hours ago, longer than it felt like. It sways with each step we take, and we begin to make a game of it. Should we step back and forth in the same spot, trying to synchronize our steps as much as possible, we can swing it further and further. Some may call this dancing, but without music, it’s something else.
When we eventually pull ourselves away from the bridge, the night feels too young to go back, too precious to spend with anyone else, and so we wander around until we’re tired of churches and playgrounds and fields and everything else we’ve missed out on seeing together until now. As it stands now, I get excited by the most mundane things, as long as they’re new to me.
Everything here is new, and I’m in a constant state of awe.
ix.
It’s the last time I’ll step foot in this place again. Last time I’ll step on that creak on the second step, round the glossy banister, ring that screeching doorbell.
It started with the easy stuff, what had to go. The chicken that defrosted a little too long in the fridge, the napkins, the shot glasses from some all-inclusive in the Caribbean. Then we got to the old DVDs, plastic dishes, buttons and thread from the tailor’s corner. Clothes, sheets. Pillows. Books, journals from the village. Jewelry tucked behind socks.
Then the couches in the basement had to be sawed apart, and the sewing machine unscrewed ten times over. We sold what we could. The coffee table sat idly in the living room until the end. Dishes, photos, fragments of her life shuffled on and off. The rug got pulled from beneath its feet, and yet it sat. Such good oak, the old growth, the kind you can’t find, the kind you’d never want to let go of. I like to think it would have looked good in my future living room, some odd few years from now. Couldn’t it have stayed in limbo until then?
My camera hangs off my neck, pulling me to each and every crevice I’m seeing just one last time. The etched glass on the doors, the brass knobs, the faded rubber ducky decals in the bathtub. It detaches me in a way, coming in as the documentor. When I hear my parent’s echo downstairs at a safe distance, I seal myself in my room, my father’s, and take a second to feel the wallpaper and try to wipe off some of the tears with it. Good naps in this one. Good years in this one.
What goes last, naturally, is the garden. We take our time to harvest the very last of the sixty-something year old arugula in a stray bag, bid our bountiful backyard adieu, and close off the doors, the gates, with the keys inside. Good life in this one.
The seatbelt is my headrest, my hands idle in my lap. We’re driving up to the mountains, leaving the haze of fireworks behind. There’s music playing, but he lowered it a while back, when I first shut my eyes. It’s something we both know, something from a long time ago.
I like to feign it sometimes. A lot can happen while I’m sleeping that I don’t want to miss, even if it’s at the cost of my sight. Say, a long sigh, the brush of a hand. Sweet nothings meant for my subconscious to hear. When I’m in a moment as finite as this, I like to think a little fibbing is allowed.
It seems that as I age, every step I take into the unknown unearths a path back to where I started from. Some I’ve disregarded, and some, I’ve taken the risk to return home.