Tonight, I'm inspired. Tonight, I realize what friendship means. Tonight, I
understand 30 some years of being misunderstood, misread and misplayed.
I had the chance to walk amongst the ruins of my old childhood traintracks
tonight. The moon had set. Dusk had moved into the neighbourhood. The
wind whistled on its own course. Me and my old pal Steve ascended the
hill that we had climbed over a decade ago and surveyed our lives under the
microscopes of truth and night.
Steve is one of those friends that has been there through thick and thin. Steve
is almost like a character in a book - except he is flesh, blood and pulse. He
is as real as it gets. Steve and I realized that it was a decade ago that we
would, without much aim, walk these tracks from our respective dwellings
and meet up with each other.
Once, when I was 25, I needed to get the fuck out of my parents domain and
walked from Nepean to Bells Corners along the tracks and knocked on Steve's
door. His mom answered and informed me that he was not in and would not be
for the remainder of the night. I had wasted a 40 minute walk. I walked through
the woods behind Bell High School and felt an elevated sense of fear that I had
never experienced before. The darkness and the woods overtook me. My pulse
quickened and my blood thickened.
But I made it out.
Steve and I talked about many things, tonight. We talked about love. We talked
about life. We talked about love and life and things gone missing. We realized
that we'd been stupid. We realized that we are young. We relished all of it.
At one point, I ascended an old train tower and reminisced about many nights
and afternoons spent on that same tower, while pining and whining. Steve
looked up at me from the dark tracks and listened while I spewed diatribes
of faith and philosophy. The air grew colder and the wind grew stronger.
Soon enough, Steve and I meandered back to my parents house. We watched
our shadows among the lights of the Arlington apartment tennis courts.
We felt like giants - old giants.
It's nights like these where time is truly frozen and eternity is graspable.
Friends like Steve are friends that must be cherished, admonished and
loved.
Sometimes, you need to go back to the tracks.
