second too late

One evening, more than twenty years ago, Giacometti was hit by a car while crossing the Place d’Italie. Though his leg was twisted, his first feeling, in the state of lucid swoon into which he had fallen, was a kind of joy: “Something has happened to me at last!” I know his radicalism: he expected the worst. The life which he so loved and which he would not have changed for any other was knocked out of joint, perhaps shattered, by the stupid violence of chance: “So,” he thought to himself, “I wasn’t meant to be a sculptor, nor even to live. I wasn’t meant for anything.” What thrilled him was the menacing order of causes that was suddenly unmasked and the act of staring with the petrifying gaze of a cataclysm at the lights of the city, at human beings, at his own body lying flat in the mud: for a sculptor, the mineral world is never far away. I admire that will to welcome everything. If one likes surprises, one must like them to that degree, one must like even the rare flashes which reveal to devotees that the earth is not meant for them.

Jean-Paul Sartre The Words, p. 232-233

I am neglecting you.

To keep this passion alive: plan for its demise.

Has taken the form of letters to people.

I realize I have been absent. But first and most importantly, how are you? How have you been? Did you receive my thought waves as I pondered daily my return to you, if only to say hello and touch you gently on the arm? We move politely around each other but I would embrace you if I could better gauge whether you feel the same inclination for an openness in our interactions. If your gaze perhaps just a glance would meet mine as we smiled awkwardly in tandem while looking away; if the what is not being said proves to move me more towards you favouring careful consideration over complete inertia and disinterest, I would know the significance of this, the heady weight of this, and would not at all hesitate to take you by the hand.

I had been enjoying the exploration of a more creative self and I am in fact doing so now in a much different capacity; one that takes me away from bed and chair to soil and pavement and frenetic office space. My 365-project had much promise, at least on the motivational side of things, but I have had to forgo cataloguing myself in favour of learning better how to engage people, organize events, and support causes outside of my comfortable abode and much more so my skin. As much as I have missed our informal and beautifully distant interactions, there is much afoot in my/your city of Vancouver, my/your country of Canada, and I have never been more immersed in projects around civic engagement, food security, and community resilience that have made for such full days.

Throw in the coordination and participation in covert and artful projects, meeting some of the most inspired and inspiring people in this lovely town, and here is a life I am assembling from a position less rife with dishonesty and empty gestures to create something that is as much mine as it is yours.

I’m eating honey dijon kettle chips and thinking about your plane crossing the Pacific. You’ve never gone that way before and neither have I. I’m thinking about what you’ll take in as your plane edges closer to the earth—do you see the patterns, are there concentric circles and grids, do you notice the outlying areas, do you see the towers of commerce punctuating the saturated area below your feet, is the scene yellow and pink and grey, what does the lay of the land look like because as a student of geography, I am apparently keen to know.

The grogginess, the confusion, the air you’ll drink in. I’m thinking about all of that. But I’m also thinking about my tired feet and the whistling I can hear through the vents. About what I’m going to make for dinner one of these nights (something that possibly involves spinach and salmon). About how slowly I drank my tea last night and how slowly I will tonight. About how thrilled I would be if I could sleep in tomorrow. About finishing up book number six on the Rwandan genocide, so I can start reading book number seven. About golden beets and tri-colour beans and spaghetti squash in the garden. About taking one of my film toy cameras out for a stroll in the hopes of one day documenting something significant and creating positive change through photography. About how you aren’t coming home tonight. And that you won’t be home tomorrow. And the night after that, and the night after that until you will indeed be home. About how that thought makes my nose twitch in a way I can’t prevent and in a way you’ve come to recognize all too instinctively. About the 7574 kilometres and 16 hours between us. About how those numbers are largely insignificant in the face of real things.

Such as being able to sleep in the centre of a bed, but being startled awake by someone’s absence.

Run amok for me.