Living here on the East coast for the first time in our lives is phenomenal. I am still unable to put it into many words - ironic when you examine my previous writings. I suppose some things simply cannot be articulated. I encourage any and every person who longs to live by the sea to get up out of your chair and do it. It doesn't have to be an expensive or a reclusive endeavour. To be one with the sea is a human feat rarely surpassed with sincerity. If you crave it and you can make it happen for yourself or for another...then what are you waiting for?
As we made our way through Quebec a few weeks ago I felt some old and painful feelings, the dreary grey blanket of methane that hovers above the highway for a day's drive was symbolic as both the symptom and the cause. We made our way into Ontario and things cleared up, the sky was bluer than I remembered and we saw and ate and hugged and loved and felt at home but vaguely out of place. As we drove into Toronto, I felt the bubbling anticipation that used to knock me down but this time it fueled me. It lifted me up. The skyline from my videos and dreams looked so surreal as to solidify its mythological status in my mind. "This place isn't real, but nothing is. This is my home." As we drove into the city all of my anxiety dissolved. My concrete expression broke off and fell onto my feet.
The first person we noticed in the city that day was Julie, walking down Spadina singing to herself and grinning big. A few hours later I got out and was hunting for a bathroom in Kensington and the air was absolutely delicious. Hundreds of symbiotic breathing bodies and the smoke of incense and imported humour. It was raining in February. Nobody stared at anybody else. My shoes echoed against so many stalls and my hair would remain soaked in wet fragrant fire for days. We shot a couple of videos with Exclaim!, a national treasure whether or not anybody will admit it; I have always loved what they do. Later that evening we manned the door at our show and the love we felt was so palpable that I couldn't take off my jacket all night. I kept hugging myself and walking around blocks and blocks sucking in the air knowing it would sustain me. Nothing felt the same. The pollution is less acrid in the winter and our vitamin regimen, careful eating, Neti-cleansing and mental focus let me breathe deeply and crave the smoke of the city long after we left. We saw Ryan C and Tim that night and were reeled back into years-old memories and saw each other anew, Andy and Nathan and Rebekah and Jennifer and so many others. It was hard to count heart beats that night.
***
I am no longer cynical or competitive. Those efforts are exhausting, and a waste of cosmic time. That which is meant to be will be, and not for reasons of fate. There is little use longing for those people or scenarios or events whose existence depends solely upon your own mind. People will come into your life when they are ready and have the effect that they - and you - choose. When you meet, you will know you have always known. When you love, you will know you have always loved. I'm confident, these days, that my influence is real and my purpose is clear. I exist to help people; to help a universe of beings find their way. I don't take this lightly or heavily because, once again, I don't have the surplus energy required to do so. Rather, I live each day as its own and know that my understanding of my purpose has come to a fruition that will last either a few months or a few lifetimes.
I mention "little use" in these longings because it would be unfair not to acknowledge the influence that grasping or longing often has on artistic outputs. Without going into specifics, I can think of hundreds of notable albums that would not have been realized were it not for intense and unhealthy feelings of want. Living in destitution usually coincides with the creation of these artistic works - certainly not just musical ones - and their appearance in this world is more of a release than an inception. An end rather than a beginning. A message in a bottle and the river on which it floats; the hand that scoops it out; the eyes and the mind and the soul. I find myself with neither the time nor energy to do anything but heal, yet I cannot dismiss the push and pull I feel around me without effort. Mental stamina takes work acquire and maintain unless you were fortunate enough to be brought into light with this training. Closer to the sky, I can feel the ripple of my actions and watch it continue to flow out into the smooth gold light and become one again with everything. The moon is perched at a different angle. The first thirty years of one's life are often spent looking at a farther away sky, at fewer stars, a smoky haze before the sun and the unholy glow of perpetual distraction. The next thirty must only be spent continuing one's work in their own rightful mind, gently manning a web of compassion without destruction.
The beginning is always the end.
