We will be who we are
Some nights, in the dying crevasses of the dusty-lit day, my mind wanders. It wanders to a place between dreams and sleep where I think about everything and all in between the ruts and the ditches of this long drawn-out life.
We used to get excited for summers. The excitement was palpable, and that deep sting in our guts let us know that the days were getting longer and that our time of scholastic slavery was at an end for a season.
We dream of getting back to the past - to the time where life seemed to make sense. Time was a figment of our spaced-out minds, and it was buried somewhere in the blackholes of distant galaxies.
Now, time is a runner, and we watch the trails of dirt that seem to burn around us that much faster with every waking second.
I've been traveling.
I'm a journeyman along the roads of this long, weary life. I don't like to stay in one place for too long. If I do, the bottoms of my feet get itchy and my dry soul feels like it needs an unearthed water.
Recently, I did some video for a band.
That band lost one of its guitarists only 4 days after I parted ways with them.
And I'm stuck here in the interim - in the purgatory of my thoughts - and I don't quite know how to reconcile what happened with the reality of 'moving on' and 'making it through'.
What are we making it through to? When the day ends, where does the light escape to?
What gets us to such a fucked up point in the non-linear graph of our lives?
Oddly enough, I only had one conversation with Jay. It was during the neon-overkill of the Indie Awards in Toronto. He was at the bar and we traded pleasantries. He looked like Johnny Cash if Johnny Cash had spent his adolescence playing punk rock. His eyes seemed to look upward when we talked. We mentioned Dave Marsh - Joel Plaskett's drummer - and how Marsh seems to send the oddest texts at the oddest times. We compared a few on each other's phones and shared a chuckle. Oh, that Marsh.
Jay also asked me if I had filmed the latest Plaskett videos from the Horseshoe tavern in December. I said yeah, and he went on to tell me that he had just returned from a tour and watched all of them and really enjoyed them. What a nice compliment.
I don't know what happened to that nice man who chunked his Gibson with an electrical current of feeling like no one else. Maybe he couldn't take it. Maybe there were other things at play. I recently listened to most of his solo album, and it's seriously fucking good.
It's so sad when someone gets to a point of no return. I myself have had some darkened days of deep contemplation and inner suffering, but above it all, I have this feeling of wanting to see how it all plays out.
If Jesus comes back, I want to see it. If it's all a sham, I want to find out how.
The roadsides and byways of this life scream with disappointment and sadness. We cannot, for one moment, pretend to be shiny happy people with all of the answers. When that happens, we are at a place of sickness. But in the same vein, we must find the tether that pulls us - the string that pulls out of the ether and back to the mothership.
I'm so sad for what happened. I'm also sad for a long time friend who is going through some awful shit. What's worse is that I don't know how to help. I nod my head, and try to listen - but I am answerless.
I guess we must remember everything - all of it. The family. The brothers. The enemies. The shit. The good. The pain. The sex. The frustration. The embarrassment.
This is the unavoidable horror of realizing that we will ultimately be who we are - and sometimes, just by being who we are, we fuck everything up.
