june: best friends, boys, and the brotherhood of bus drivers
if u think of a subtitle let me know
to be read to the tune of kelly clarkson’s 2004 hit “behind these hazel eyes”: here i am, once again, writing my monthly essay, three weeks late, broken up, deep inside, but you won’t get to see the tears i cry, behind this google doc”
this month’s edition is a series of thoughts, like shrapnel. as opposed to usual when i write extremely narratively congruent prose. that’s the tricky part of writing a diaristic monthly-recap essay a month late is you sort of forget the details. so my month-after-the-fact lens is all i have to go through to fill in the blanks. it’s like the broken japanese vases repaired with gold at the seams. the damage becomes a part of it. my procrastination is a feature, not a bug. (or so she will continue to tell herself.)
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when do you emerge as an artist? grants and fellowships and residencies will always delineate the kind of artist they are looking for. emerging. mid-career. established. i’m four years out of theatre school but i definitely do not feel as though i’ve emerged. i’m still pounding the pavement day in, day out trying to remind people who i am like the annoying little sister. it’s funny, i forget that i’m someone’s sister sometimes. one might even say of the annoying little variety.
i’m fine with not having yet emerged. i just would like a by/when for when that descriptor no longer applies.
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recently my walk home from the bus after work has been perfectly timed with the last whispers of the sunset.
but because i live on the east side of my little town, i have to walk with my back turned to it.
of course i turn frequently to grab a peek or picture of the remaining pink hue.
but i trudge on.
it seems unfair that as soon as summer starts the days get shorter.
it’s why spring is my favourite season.
spring is about anticipating.
it’s like the nervous first dates before summer throws you into a relationship.
in spring, every warm day is treasured.
the sun grazing your arm, giving you goosebumps in the good way.
a few stringed together you start to think, is this it? has summer arrived? is this for real? am i falling in love?
and then it rains again.
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there is no brotherhood quite like that between bus drivers.
the way the honk and wave when they pass each other. when one bus driver gets on just to get somewhere (it’s weird to think bus drivers take the bus too) and stands up front chatting with the driver. those are my troops, right there. our city’s finest. getting the people where they need to go.
yes, the month of june was another that saw me take an inordinate amount of public transit, because such is a mere matter of fact of my life. but possibly less so than in past months. don’t worry, our love affair is far from over.
june saw beginnings and endings. sickness and health. weddings. no funerals though. which is probably for the best but it would have made for some nice parallel structure in that sentence.
i went to my cousin’s wedding in edmonton. well my ex-step-cousin via my late father’s brother. why are weddings the only time for people to dress up and gather and give gifts? i felt this way about a friend’s wedding in may as well. why can’t i just celebrate my life and friends the same way? with a massive party with food and drinks and music and we all dress up and sing and celebrate the fact that of all the gin joints in all the corners of all the world, we walked into each other’s. we get to spend our time on this temporary home all together. that seems like the same idea as a wedding anyway. maybe i’ll start a feminist events company for single women to throw parties celebrating their singledom. singleness? singlehood? whatever.
point is i didn’t take the bus those days.
i also didn’t take the bus while i was dating a boy.
for a brief moment in time this june i was ~dating~ someone, if you can believe it. (if you read may’s edition you know spoilers about this particular saga but please keep them to yourself, think succession finale-level high stakes here, people) he was kind to me and cared for me and drove me places (ergo no bus) but ultimately we had more things out of common than in. as you get older you realize that attraction sometimes isn’t enough. in fact it often isn’t. you can feel whatever magical, mystical chemistry you’re supposed to feel. your body can ache for someone, even. but you’re not meant to grow together. that doesn’t make you not meaningful to each other. it just means there’s more to life than making out. if only there wasn’t, hey?
when i ended things with him i wasn’t sure if i made the right decision. but i’ve heard it said that the best decision is to make a decision. so i did. i committed to not committing. ultimately we’re all doing this life thing for the very first time. every decision and twist and turn and mistake and hangover even though we said we weren’t going out tonight is us living trial by fire. all we can do is what feels right in the moment. and sometimes what feels right in the moment is wrong. and we know for next time. or the time after that. listen, maybe by the time i’m 90 i’ll learn to stop getting accidentally tipsy on one hard cider.
was i scared of being in a relationship when i, despite complaining about being single, am ultimately a pretty stubbornly independent person? or was he really the wrong guy? in the moment you just have to follow your heart or listen to your gut or some other curt metaphor for trusting your instincts.
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the ER lobby waiting room of my local hospital hadn’t changed in my lifetime.
i have been there but a handful of times but an ER trip, no matter how trivial, always leaves an impression on the memory.
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it’s funny how where you’re from and what you did growing up seeps into your dna.
like i’m not outdoorsy per se but i also can’t imagine not living with the mountains in view every day
or the ocean a 30-minute walk in all directions from the city centre.
i grew up thinking the mountains were a matter of fact
until i went somewhere else and there weren’t any.
breaking: nine-year-old discovers winnipeg doesn’t have mountains.
it’s a wonder more romcoms aren’t set in vancouver. they are just filmed here. but the city itself is full of romance.
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my introspectiveness is not something i need to recover from.
i call myself an extrovert but that’s not the whole story. any sort of umbrella title that tries to organize us into groups typically isn’t. i like spending time alone. i’m good at it. whether that’s innate or learned from a childhood spent being the “mature one” or the “good kid” who “can keep herself entertained.” who’s to say.
but it’s not a flaw i need to fix.
a monday afternoon movie alone? sounds like a perfect plan to me.
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every so often i am reminded of the devastating fact that my best friends and i will never live in the same spot again
jake used to live seven floors above me. now he’s an international border and two states below me.
katrina used to live three feet from me. now she’s on the other side of the continent.
jessie used to live on the other side of a wall. now she’s engaged to a boy i’ve never met.
one best friend used to live three blocks down the street. now we aren’t best friends.
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catch u next month,
xoxo,
rach