If Only In My Dreams

I like waking up before the sun rises, getting ready for work in the dark, and arriving at the bus stop just as the sun touches the horizon from below. The clouds light up in shades of purple and red and orange, and I am alone at my stop, dressed and ready for another day. I like being on the bus with everyone else, feeling as if I am a part of the greater picture, a small person in a large world, going about my day.

I suppose Christmas is coming soon, although I can barely feel it. I spend my days catering to the needs of others, whether it's a t-shirt for the boyfriend, denim for the son, hoodie for the granddaughter. I write out gift receipts and put collapsed boxes in bags, reassure anxious buyers that yes, the hoodie will fit, and yes, if it doesn't, you can bring it back (as long as it's before the 7th of January and you have your receipt!). I always feel cold inside. I wish I knew how to warm me up. I wish I could feel Christmas.

I leave for Toronto next Thursday, to see my favourite people and favourite places. I'm hoping this New Year's Eve will be better than the last (oh, isn't that what we always wish for), or, at the very least, that I will remember it this time.

There are days like today where nothing really makes sense, and I can imagine myself in a million other scenerios, ones in which I am capable of complete, utter happiness. These moments have been happening far too often. This is where I can see the years behind me, so far away, and the years ahead stretched out so that I can't see the end. And yet it seems, there is never enough time.

Renata's Bests of December (so far):
+Crave
+Band of Horses
+Oolong Tea House
+Air Canada
+my new cell phone
+christmas lights
+eggnog

Merry New Year and Happy Chrismukkah, everyone.

In The Devil's Territory

Sunday morning.

My mother is sick in bed, has been for a couple days now, and she may need to go back to the hospital. I hate being here all alone with her like this, it's depressing and upsetting. I can handle it, but I don't want to live it alone. Now I understand why it helps to have people around to support you, why family is so important.

Tonight is my work Christmas party. I am planning on drinking as much as I can in order to numbify my circumstances, my shortcomings, and my disappointments. I miss my friends. I am strong, but sometimes I feel as if I am not strong enough, not enough to bear all that is bestowed upon me. I wish for an escape. A rescue, even. Something to take me away from it all.

I sometimes forget to eat enough, between working, my almost daily visits to the gym, and my now-often anxiety. I've realized that I am getting too good at being distant and cold, because it hurts less. I need to be careful to not get too thin. It might just happen one day, I'll realize that a part of me is missing. And by then, it'll be too late.

Fred Astaire

Last night, I discovered the Documentary section at Blockbuster. Before this, I had assumed that only tiny, independent movie stores had such sections, and that only tiny, independent movie stores could fulfill my inherent need for independent films, foreign films, and documentaries. I am both overjoyed and disappointed by this revelation.

I also discovered Twinings tea at Safeway, which basically means that I will be enjoying authentic Irish Breakfast and Earl Grey whenever I feel the need. On my to-do list is a visit to Oolong Tea House in Kensington to top up my stash of Market Spice black tea and take a long walk along the river.

On Tuesday night, the girls and I went downtown to see our manager perform with his band at the HiFi club. It was the coldest night of our cold wave, and your typical indie-rock scene: bottles of beer and tables lit by tea lights, tattoos and awesome hair among the 20-and-30-something sceners. The club itself had the perfect artistic touch, murals on the walls reminiscent of your favourite iPod commercial.

The mall I work at became instantly busier yesterday, it being December 1st. The collective consciousness became aware that yes, it is December, and yes, Christmas is imminent, and if you do not start your shopping now, death will come swiftly and painfully. I haven't started my shopping.

Peacock Skeleton With Crooked Feathers

Sometimes I don't even recognize myself. In pictures, in the mirror, from this summer and summers past, sometimes in my own writing. Not because I look any different than usual, but because it's as if I never really knew me. These days, nothing much happens, and I am letting weeks go by without even noticing. Christmas is in less than a month now, and that means I am even closer to my Ontario trip. By the time I get there, it will have been 4 solid months away from Ontario. 4 much needed months away.

It's snowing a blue streak here, extremely cold with a snowfall warning in effect. I didn't leave the house today. Instead, I cleaned my room, read a book by the fire, and ate cookies. Glorious.

Every day, I look more and more like a 15-year-old boy. I don't really bother with my hair anymore, which of course only makes it look it's best, and working at a clothing store only further improves my style (and expands my wardrobe). I now own 17 pairs of jeans. That I wear. I won't even try to count the number of t-shirts I have, because obviously a jeans-and-t-shirt girl will have a lot of jeans and t-shirts. And really, really cute shoes.

I digress.

Christmas is coming, and I've sold my soul to the devil. I am the retail whore, in chains and fire and brimstone and on the road to perdition.

I present my newest tattoo (from September 10th, 2006):

Alone Together

We can never have it quite good enough. We can never keep it, no matter what. nothing in this life was meant to last forever; even the tiniest particle, the largest indestructible force will collapse someday. To my left sits a book on quantum physics, Miles Davis' album Kind of Blue (the essential jazz recording), photographs, unopened bars of dark belgian chocolate, and unused rolls of film. Right in front of me sits a large, glowing, white screen that is full of promise.



I want to write tonight. A want is very different than a can, a want is an impulsive, fleeting feeling that could logically pass at any given moment. I can. I can write tonight. "I can" is too ambitious. I want to can. I wish the can were so easy.

Another one of the things I wish I could can at this very moment is photograph. I wish my camera worked tonight. I wish everything that was ever possible and open to me was possible right now. I wish every opportunity for me to do the right thing presented itself right now: I should look you in the eye. I should say something. I should do something. I should leave the house. I should place that phone call. I should send that email. I should write that letter. I should've kissed you. I should be there with you. I should, I should, I should. I would. I will. I shouldn't be afraid, not even once, up to the very second before the second I die. In that last second, I will allow a small amount of tangible fear to flood the second before I no longer am awake.



It's this moment of beauty, the endless hours before daylight where only the photographs on my wall keep me company. The loneliest time of my life is yet to come, I've decided. I'm sure anyone could be more alone than me, now or then. or later. But for now, I can't comprehend that. I can only hope it won't choke me for too long.

Sometimes I feel that movies are more real than real life. Silly, I know, but it's sometimes only in movies where everything about a scene is noticed and recorded and utterly meaningful. What happens to the details in real life that no one sees? Are they lost forever in the vacuum of space, or are they recorded somewhere and kept as archives? It's this and other things that plague me from day to day.



I dedicate this time in my life to all those who will never read this, from the cute guy who works at the Y, to the boy i know who lives far away and far off in my mind. To everyone else that will never know me. Perhaps one day this will all mean something, perhaps there is a reason I have no reason. I have no direction, and no way to know for sure. But I lay my trust in the rush of fate.

I Am One, But I Asked For Two

I've become mind-numbingly complacent over the past couple days, and my mother is in California so I've been alone for the most part. I can't understand why I feel nothing, I do what I have to do but don't care about anything else otherwise. It sucks. At the very least, I went snowboarding with my Aussie friend in the mountains yesterday, remembered that I'm alive and why.

Sometimes I hate the past more than I love it and miss it, but I can't hate it because it's what's made me. The last two years of my life have been huge, but I'm completely positive that the next 10 will be just as crazy and lonely and full of adventure.

I miss my friends. There are many certain other things that I do not miss. And I need to move on.

Seeking Solace In Science

Tonight, I walked home 2 hours straight from the mall, in the soggy snowy streets and with the foggy sunny sky turning into moony darkness. I walked for no reason, I could've taken the bus or gotten a ride, but I mostly needed the time to think and wallow. I needed my feet to keep moving in order to keep from imploding. I stopped at Chapters and bought a book on quantum physics and another on syncronicity, and got a soy peppermint mocha. I got home, felt a bit better, burned an awesome CD (track list below) and sat down to read by the fire.

I've become quite depressed recently and sometimes it feels as if nothing will make me happy again. It feels as though there is nothing keeping me afloat except for my friends, because I know they care about me. I feel really numb most of the time. So, technically, I don't feel at all. I can only hope it will get better with time. I hope I won't continue to sink deeper.

Wallowing Playlist (good for wallowing, depression, or just enjoying being melancholy):

1. World Waits by Jeremy Enigk
2. It's In Your Blood by Lydia
3. Lovely & Blue by Ryan Adams
4. Golden Star by My Brightest Diamond
5. Crowd Surf Off A Cliff by Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton
6. Hold On, Hold On by Neko Case
7. Summertime Feat. Billie Holiday & Louis Armstrong
8. Set The Fire To The Third Bar by Snow Patrol Feat. Martha Wainwright
9. Waltz Moore by From First To Last
10. Trouble by Coldplay
11. Slow Dancing In A Burning Room by John Mayer
12. I've Been Thinking by Handsome Boy Modeling School Feat. Cat Power
13. December (Demo) by Regina Spektor
14. You Could Be Happy by Snow Patrol
15. Lines Bleed by Pony Up!
16. Airbag by Radiohead
17. Radio by The Silent Years

Guten nacht. I'm ready for a sleep. I'm ready for nothing at all.

This, I Never Knew.

I'm back from Halifax. I had a fantastic time in an old, old city, nestled next to the stormy Atlantic. Sushi, drag queens, cruise ships, late night talks with heron birds on the waterfront, drives to Sydney and back. Our road race in Cape Breton was cancelled due to weather (Sunday morning), so we went for a run anyway and called it a day. We visited Eamonn in Antigonish, and I'll never shake the feeling that I went back in time about 20 or 30 years when I went to Nova Scotia.

We saw Marie Antoinette (bad, bad, bad), ate a vegan dinner, went for a few twilit runs in the park on the point (along that ocean again), drank wine, laughed, laughed, laughed. I have a new BFF, naturally. Or not so new, just newly.. confirmed. Dalhousie University is gorgeous.

I thought a lot on this trip. I had lots of time to think, as I had connections in Toronto and Montreal, and lots of idleness. I thought about us, about me, about my future, about my friends and future endeavours. I'm tired of thinking now. I would like to stop.

And I would like to be alone for a long, long time. Not completely alone, but I don't want to date anyone for a long while. I'm happy now. Happy. Alone.

It's Officially Official:

I am backpacking Europe and the UK this spring! Tentatively from the middle of March till the middle of May. We shall see what comes of those dates for sure. Cities I am planning on visiting:
Ireland:
Dublin, Belfast

Scotland:
Glasgow, Loch Ness, Edinburgh

England/Wales:
London, Cardiff, North Wales

Spain:
Madrid, Barcelona

France:
Paris*, Nice*, Avignon*

Italy:
Florence*, Venice

Greece:
Athens

Portugal:
Lisbon

aaaaand, if possible, Switzerland and The Netherlands. And Belgium for good measure. This list will most likely expand.

I leave for Halifax on Tuesday night.

Candice, this site needs an update. If you can help me with my archives and layout (whenever you get some spare time! If ever!) I'd absolutely love it.


* denotes somewhere I've already been.

Set Fire

My boss (the coolest manager of my life) got to see the New Pornographers for free the other night because he's got friends in the band. If only. I leave for Halifax on Tuesday night, and I'm so excited by oh my god also nervous.

I have the whole weekend off! I don't know what to do with myself!

And last but not least, I think I am going to travel this coming year instead of going to school.

That is all.

Baby, You're The Only Light I Ever Saw

This past Sunday, something momentous happened.

I got some baaaaad news. And it makes me feel lost, anxious, relieved, terrified, free. How often does your quasi-boyfriend tell you he thinks he's gay? The boy you spent your whole summer with, shared awesome and sometimes perplexing memories with?

It all makes sense now. The only problem is, where does this leave me?

And better yet, how is the trip to visit him next week going to go?

Sunnyside Station

Today my heart feels sick. I feel unwanted and unmentioned, I crave a good cry and wish I could remember what to write and why. I'm missing everything all at once, so much that it is caving in on me and if feelings were bricks, I'd be crushed instantly. I can't even pinpoint what it is that I need, it's just a vague space right in the middle of my being that is screaming out in agony.

I feel unnaturally angry, although only at times, flaring and so much more painful. I wish I could feel like I was doing more in the world. I wish I had time to do more in the world.

I wish I could be so much more.

Today I was sitting in a tea house, staring straight down a long stretch of road that comes right from the foothills, thinking only of later and feeling so calm that it was almost unreal.

Today I was standing on a moving train, forming a million thoughts and ideas and concepts and plans in my head, while the afternoon sun faded into darkening clouds.

Today I remembered what I thought I had forgotten.

Today was an epiphany, and taken one step further, it would have been all of my recent dreams crashing into each other and becoming one.

But now, when today is almost tomorrow, I have forgotten everything I'd remembered. I forget those perfect ideas and almost forget how beautiful my world can be. I wish I had someone here to remind me how it was.

Cursed With

It's the afternoon I spent months ago, a year ago even, in a house where the early morning light slid across the ancient wooden floor. I burn the same incense on the same afternoon, sliding into oblivion in my cozy little bed, for I no longer wish to be conscious. I do the same activity to reach the same result, knowing I only want to pass the time. A few things are different in this place, for a year ago I couldn't watch the sun slide below the mountains any night of the week, or hear my mother move around downstairs in the kitchen. I used to enjoy my solitude, where the melancholy could sink in, and where I could let it. I miss my old house where I could be alone. I miss the quiet uncertainty of my life there, where my life was entirely up to me and I allowed my time to go to waste.

I still love this time of year, it's so completely me that I should walk out and sink into the fallen leaves and never return. I wish I could disappear so easily.

And tonight, while I lay in bed, listening to the clock ticking and wishing I could sleep, I will hope for the rest of this month to pass as quickly as possible. It feels like my life is on hold now. I'm so far, in time and in space, from all I hold dear. Everything that I fear will go away in just a matter of time, whether I want it to or not.

Well, This Is IT

Welp, guys, tomorrow I start my brand new job. I am now going to be a full time retail worker, paid to work in retail full time. Full time? FULL TIME. It kind of sounds like I'm devoting my whole life to it. Am I? I think so, probably, yes.

Also, this is a new thing sort of, not really, but I may very well be heading to Halifax in about a month, because, because, there is a certain person there that I really miss and would like to see, Thus, Halifax. Halimafaxination.

Otherwise, this weekend has been way too sunny for my liking, and I am sooo Ikea'd out. No more Ikea, please, not for a while.

And don't forget, my photoblog is still alive and kicking and freshly updated too. So check'r, okay?

Ungh.

I woke up this morning almost ready to face the day. For some reason, everything seems harder and more sentimental on this grey Calgary morning, where I feel most alone. There are a few things keeping me afloat: the package receipt pinned to my bulletin board from yesterday, the pictures on my wall, the coffee I just drank. The rest of my fate rests on my shoulders today, dependent on whether or not I can leave the house. Part of me wants to collapse on my bed and sob for a while.

Sleep doesn't come easily anymore. I don't know what I'm worrying about or why I can't stop tossing and turning. It's all on me now.

And my heart is fit to burst.

Check It, Check It OUUUUTTTT

My photoblog is officially now updated!

http://renataphotographs.blogspot.com

Feel free to comment- and I'll be putting more up soon!

This Is The Last Night Of The Rest Of Your Life

Photograph courtesy The Lifetime Collective sans permission.

There is a sound I can hear from here, it's a sound like the wind blowing a million leaves and blades of grass and into buildings and across roads. I can hear the snow on the mountains half an hour from me, the moody Rocky Mountains, who became snow-covered and intimidating yesterday with the drop in temperature and rise in precipitation. Yesterday, after a lunch at the unbelievable Fairmont Banff Springs and the purchase of a new coat (see below) from Creme featuring the lifetime collective clothing line.

The Palms.

This is a million hours in the making, every moment I wish I'd had and everything in between. I can run for hours and hours and not get tired, listening to the Blood Brothers and getting anger out with every step. It's a cold night in Calgary, Alberta, and soon I'll be cozy in my bed. I'm just tired of thinking about life and am prepared to start living it. I'm the opposite of weepy and nostalgic this time. I'm ready again for public transportation, human interaction, being cold and watching people. Goodbye direction.

You'll Never See A Finer Ship

This was the lull I'd longed for. A full week of intensity, or rather, a full summer of intensity. I'm finally moved, finally inked (again), finally 20 (egh, egh, egh), and now it's being alone and finding a job and becoming immersed in music, because there is nothing else for me to do but to dream of dying again. Last night I was building my new Ikea furniture and listening to American Analog Set, and realizing I know no one in this city and that everyone who will ever love me is far away, and perhaps gone forever. I'm being dramatic, I know this, but I have every right. I just couldn't breathe.

Now this morning is the ultimate type, rainy and dark and perfect. After a whole week of sunshine, this city is matching my mood. Jacob and I drove across the country this week, 3380 kilometres, to my new home and my new life. He left yesterday on a plane, while I stayed here. I am staying here in my new life, until I figure out something better for myself.

I'm 20 years old now. I'm a twenty-something. I don't like it. I'm alone, and although on a new adventure, it's leaving me in such a precarious position.

This is it, though. This is where I must rise to my challenges and move on into brightness, for there is no more for me here than that, nothing but wide open opportunity. I still miss you all, for I'm away from you all again, all of you.

In the next couple days I'll be posting on my photoblog again, photos from this past week. Check it out at http://renataphotographs.blogspot.com.

This week, I'm listening to:
Emily Haines - Knives Don't Have Your Back
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
Alexisonfire - Crisis
Interpol - Antics
American Analog Set

Not Worth The Worry

This morning, everything in my house was moved onto a truck and carted away. You'd think that such a thing would be sad, but in my mind, it's progress. I'm already thinking Calgary. Part of me is already in the west, ready to start a new chapter in my life and write more cliched analogies. Since being back from camp, I've seen and talked to so many of my new and old friends it seems almost ridiculous. But it's not ridiculous at all, oh no, it's wonderful because I miss all of them and wish I weren't leaving them behind. Leaving them behind?

Am I afraid to move to a new city, where I know no one?

Truthfully, I'm mostly not thinking about it except for vague plans like getting a job and training for a marathon. I'm sure that once I get there, and once I get settled, I'll miss here so absolutelyfreakingmuch. It's all a part of this, though. I accept the risks, and I am so ready for the highs and the lows that I'll experience.

The only thing left here now is me, and once my parents fly out on Saturday morning, I'll no longer have a home in Orangeville. I won't have a home in the only place I've really ever known. One week short of my 20th birthday and I am uprooted and flailing. I am worried that I'll forget to say goodbye to someone or something. Is everything I love here imprinted in my mind, ready to bring back to memory if I need it? Have I fully absorbed every bit of this?

Of course. I've lived here for the last 20 years of my life.

And as for him, as for him... I really don't know. The only thing I know is that I hold him in high esteem and I don't want to let him go. Not completely, not yet, not ever? I just wish he'd let me know where he is, how he is, and if he ever thinks of me.

That is all.

Everything's Not Lost

The weather is already cooling, and camp is turning into a dream. I find lately that I prefer my camp friends over my old friends, not for any real reason other than the fact that I just spent the last 9 weeks of my life with the same people, the people that know me now, and know the real me. We have a whole summer in common, a summer that tried our patience, left us perpetually exhausted, and thrilled us. We revel in the memories of that time, and the memories of each other, and wish we were together again. Camp allowed us to leave our external worries until the end of the summer, and allowed us to leave the real world behind for a while.

The thing I'm really struggling with lately is not loneliness, as I'd feared, but rather balancing those summer relationships with current life. I forget how far away everyone is, and when I remember, it's like a punch in the chest. I don't know when I'll see most of them again, and it's even harder when I know I'll be moving even further away. I still dream of them. I still dream of the breeze at camp, off the lake.

I'm listening to Coldplay's Parachutes tonight, and it reminds me of the fall of Grade 11, when I first starting listening to this album obsessively. Before they were lame and the next big thing. It's the cool weather and the sweaters, and reminds me of high school and cross country team practice. And chocolate Vector bars, which used to eat on the 20 minute walk to school as breakfast.
The one thing that this cool weather makes me wish?

That I was going back to school. Moving into my new place with my roommate, preparing for classes, partying before the real work begins. Can't have one without the other, and that realization helps me understand the full brunt of my decision to leave school for a year.


UP NEXT:
Why My Camera Deserves To Burn In Hell.