colours & spoons

Pink bothers me. It makes me feel too much before I’m ready. Yes, you could also classify me as a visual learner. I’ll give you another example because I’m venting and it feels right…

I was newly sober and I received a birthday gift from my brother. It was a calendar. It was not the manly kind. No cars. No guns. No girls. It was full of kittens. Yes, you heard me. A calendar full of cuddles. At this point my brain flick-flacked between poles. Warmth, annoyance, awww, and the sense this doe-eyed creature caught me where it’s vulnerable.

Forget the kittens and let’s talk about black. I still wear it. It’s a background blend that makes me feel safe. I like the shadow effect. I’m an observer instead of an embarrassing lamp post. Black makes me feel detached like the swirl of milk that hasn’t sunk into the guts of the coffee. Side note says…I maybe sober and yet I still chug a liter of coffee in the morning. Murder in the morning doesn’t look good on the resume. The kittens stuck a spoon in the works. I’m getting better at it. Now I love the kitties. I might learn to accept the spoon.

Now I need to talk about spoons. Relax this isn’t going to be a one star customer review because I’m bigger than that. Well…so far. I’m gonna be fancy and say catalyst. What happens the moment you get stirred up? Does it make you wanna throw rocks at cars? Maybe I write an angry letter. Every sentence progresses. First it’s barbed wire, and then bed springs that got into a fight. I crumple up the paper and burst into tears. I walk outside and suck on that cigarette like it owes you a mortgage. A wind hits my face and the tears turn cold and soft. Now everything is going to be okay.

My problems are as significant as a spoon. This also goes for success too. Courage comes before the drop and after every storm there’s that sun that holds me close. Okay, so this is a spiel about life. If you’re about to yawn go do it outside. Compliments are another thing. My ego is a young tree that sways in the wind. It rarely stands still. Tug-o-war is far more exciting. One more story, kiddo. I promise.

It’s time to dig. Ever cleaned out your french press (coffee-ma-jangle) with bare hands? Old grains cling to me. Much like my past, it takes a while to rinse off. I had this thing. It’s a pretty big thing. I want to feel cared for by others. I want that sunset friendship that’ll ripple into memory. Then I get a compliment out of nowhere. I bristle and wish I could beat that person with a heavy telephone. This is the way my brain works. It’s immune to spoons.

Let’s wrap it all up. I need to go eat more chocolate. I spoke of colours and spoons. What I meant was emotion in a tight spot. I can hear you saying – what happens next, genius? I need to accept the spoon I cannot change. Tides will run through me. I can never guess the direction. I know it will carry me until I see a message, somewhere.

I’m okay with that.

When I inhale

I just felt like typing. I like the speed of my fingers when I do it. There’s a rhythm to it. When my fingers click on the keys it feels like thoughts galloping. You can’t make a mess like you can in a journal. I like to doodle skeletons that were left in the rain. Outlines or shapes and ideas that need more time around them, to find themselves. Maybe one day they’ll start a narrative.

I should will give you an idea of some of the things whirling around in my head. I’ll talk about smoking. So here’s a timeline to get you familiar with where (and why) I am here now…

I got sober. I stopped smoking weed and gulping down alcohol because, at the time, my survival depended on it. My future did not. In the first three months my brain lit up. Every kind of repressed voice, emotion and colour shot to the surface. My brain was a living and chaotic kaleidoscope of feelings, anxiety, energy and something worse…unpredictability. Years of substance and alcohol abuse kept me unconscious and unmanaged. Both of these play out in early sobriety. I can’t stop something small from making me cry or panic in seconds. There’s something else too. I can’t bring this to a dead halt without having a drink. I can dig deeper now I have some distance from the experience. I realize part of the reason I drank in the first place was to sedate the cerebral squirrels in their cage.

Two things happen after three months. The first is the anxiety, mood swings, and feeling “driven” starts to dissipate. Thank fuck. The next thing is I begin to realize that addiction is here to stay. You can move houses to change the view, but there will always be a storm. I don’t know why. I get this feeling that I always will have this urge to “tap out”. I used to use the words “take the edge off”. (I never used this phrase when I was smoking. It felt like I was apologizing for something that wasn’t there.)

In the beginning the first few cigarettes gave me a head rush and a calming feeling. After a while that rush became harder to achieve. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? My body adapts to whatever I throw at it. I’ll confess something out the gate, numbnuts. Of course I was aware of the cancer thing! The most obvious thing to me is lung cancer. I thought I’d be more transparent and I just googled some of the shitty things that happen. Such as:

• smelly hair
• anxiety and irritability
• yucky teeth
• bronchitis
• chimney coughs
• heart disease
• horrible vision
• lung cancer
• constricted blood vessels
• chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• loss of appetite
• increased risk of blood cancer, meh
• etc, etc, ad nauseam.

Confession no. 2 – I didn’t care about the data above. As long as I could tap out for a few seconds and get the squirrels to stop scratching…I was okay with that. Remind me to come back and talk about COPD. I have a chilling story about that. Anyway I got the flu and my body and old ideas had a standoff. I was standing outside in the morning with a chest full of phlegm. Yes, I was hauling on a cigarette. Smart, huh? Even though I was feeling like dog’s balls, a part of my brain played that same narrative. You need a little more and you’ll feel better.

It turns out I had to test that theory. Four cigarettes later I sounded like a bagpipe full of bees. This culminated in a sentence or two. What the fuck am I doing to my body? I’m just making it worse. Dunno about you but I have the habit of waking up when I’ve pushed things to the limit. As well as the flu the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging. The weekend is a mixture of me cursing myself and contemplating my own mortality.

This anger morphed into action and I went to the pharmacy to buy some nicotine gum. This post got me pretty charged so I threw a piece into my mouth hole while I wrote the previous paragraph. I know you’re gonna ask about the gum. Everyone does. It’s not the same as cigarettes. It gives me a bit of that hit until I get this weird metallic taste in my mouth. It feels like I’m chewing on electric tinsel. Maybe that’s the point? Maybe they want me to throw it away like a guilty sock I jerked off into. I don’t want anyone to know…I just want to be done with it.

The first few days I was consumed by invasive thoughts. I like to refer to it as unwanted advertising. I need a smoke, I need a smoke. Look how nice the weather is bud! Perfect breeze to light your cigarette in. I don’t care you threw them all away. Look for someone puffing and ask them for one. You can make a plan shitbird. Thankfully the flu clawed at my energy levels. I slowly began to recover and feel less rotten like the underside of a log.

Turns out I’m caffeinated enough to share one more story with you. The old man with COPD. Easiest way to describe it is “smoker’s bronchitis” or emphysema. Both of these phrases get caught in your throat before they roll off your tongue. I worked with him while doing a part time general labour job. A carpenter tore up old flooring and I was the lemming that carted away all the debris.

At first the child in me bristled when I had to do simple things while he sat in the car. For example, close the trailer door or put cones around the car. Only when we were on lunch did the mallet of recognition smack me. It didn’t feel good. Now before I tell you how this happened, I need to point out one more thing. This man is fat. I can see you flinch when I spew the f-bomb. No I’m not talking about chunky, either. I’m talking about “when you get in a car and your stomach touches the steering wheel” fat.

During our lunch he picks up his wife and drops her off at home. I watch him waddle into his house. It’s dark inside. The couches are adorned with dog blankets and a glowing fish tank gives the living room a pulse. Apart from the trickle of fish and his dog that bounces around like a fresh tennis ball…everything else feels heavy. I come out of the toilet and I find, this man I’ll call Mike, folded on the edge of the couch.

Oxygen tubes curl into his face. He says something to me like “I just need a few minutes.” I watch his eyes get lost in the blue hue of the fish tank. I figure this must be a form of meditation for him. I ask him about the other tank in the room. I try make my question sound cursory and wondering. He shrugs it off like small talk he’s intercepted many times. I still remember one of his lines. “If you want to keep smoking, this is what you’ve got to look forward to.” At the time this didn’t cause a reaction. Later on it throbbed inside my head.

It’s time to leave. I walk out of the house and get into the car. I watch him take careful steps. The car door clicks. He climbs in and starts huffing and puffing. It reminds me of when I was a kid in the swimming pool. We’d play a game to see who could hold their breath the longest. I’d give up after my lungs were burning and I gasped to get my breath back…you know the rest.

Shock ignites my eyebrows. “Are you okay, Mike?” He gives me a proverbial shrug telling me it was just part of his routine. It wasn’t a game for him anymore. It was ingrained into his life. I thought about this for days afterwards. The logic played out into chilling patterns. I chose to ignore it. I’ve come to realize significant change comes when I’m at the edge of my own precipice. This doesn’t apply to all change otherwise I’d be a walking dumpster fire. And I should elaborate on the whole edge-of-the-cliff thing…

That precipice is where my urges and logic intersect. You can be fancy and call it consciousness. I like to think of it as intuition or knowing. It’s kinda like poker. You play for a while and the betting goes up. Three people fold. A small thought gnaws at you. It’s time to put down the cards and walk away asshole. There are other games to play.

Or maybe I’ll just step outside the house to feel the wind touch my face again? A few houses down I hear a kid yell and another laugh. I’m exactly where I need to be.

PhilosopherPoet

Canadian nuances – Part 6: Wading through sludge

I spent my New Year’s Eve in an empty house. The warm kiss of sherry coating my lungs, and the gentle sigh of a dog narrating my thoughts. It was lonely, but perfect. Quiet moments give us time to reflect. On everything, really.

I babbled to a few people on Facebook, my thumbs thundering against the glass face of my phone. I checked the time 23:34…shit, time to leave. I threw on my headphones, slung my bottle of sherry back into my bag, began my ascent through the ice and sludge. The succulent anger of Slipknot thundering threw me.

I approach the SkyTrain. Reach for my wallet. Seconds after my hand collides with its porous body, my eyes dart to the sticker adjacent to the turnstiles Free Ride on New Year’s Eve. 8 P.M. until 5 A.M. A smile creeps over me. “Thank you Canada,” I mutter to myself.

I get off at my station. A few of my heavy metal anthems are now slithering across my playlist. I start headbanging and beating drums like invisible ghosts in the air. Somehow this doesn’t seem like enough. I kick up a bit of snow and do an Irish jig in the middle of the street. (It’s like a version of Riverdance you should never watch. Trust me.) A thought came to me this morning as I began etching out the events of last night. I think I’ve fallen in love with this country. Or perhaps it’s fallen in love with me? I don’t care which way you slice it.

During the summer of 2016 I had a romance with a beautiful Japanese girl. I see an interesting parallel between loving a person and loving an environment. There’s the initial awe of something new coupled with anxiety of being able juggle the complexity of it all. Maybe one has an angry parent buzzing in their head saying “You’re in a new country / relationship now. Don’t fuck it up!”

Initially being in Canada felt like wading through sludge. There’s so many details, -isms, directions, slang and faces thrown your way, all that’s left to do is slowly wade through it. The sludge. Now that I’m two and a bit years into being “settled”, there’s less sludge. I can still see parts of it, others haven’t found me yet.

Where am I going with all this? Well, you remember the earlier analogy about the lover? A tipping point comes in any relationship. It is when you let your guard down. You express yourself, and run with it. It feels like flying. It tastes like freedom. That was exactly how I felt a few hours ago, churning up snow and dancing like dyslexic spaghetti.

Yeah…I may have looked like a fool, but I’m cool with that. Man must frolic, and so should you!

Canadian nuances – Part 5: When the smoke clears

Vancouver. It’s the afternoon and you take a stroll downtown. You notice a certain smell. In fact it’s hard to avoid the sweet scent of marijuana. It drifts through the sunny streets like an unconscious cloud, eager to throttle addicts and adolescents. In many ways, the west coast (of Canada) is seen as a little more mellow, crammed with hippies, riddled with bohemians, gypsies and stoners…of course. You decide how rebellious you are at the end of the day.

When I first heard I was moving to Vancouver and closer to consuming some high quality Mary Jane, my ‘inner rebel’ leapt up and gave the addict an invisible hi-five. It was similar to the feeling when you may win a prize of some kind, and you hear the announcement crackling over the intercom. Now I’m going on a tangent. Lemme fast forward to my first encounter with this cloud.

I arrived in the blustery wind and rain. This was spring. The first night I booked myself into the cheapest hostel in Vancouver. Yes, you heard me. I get into this burnt out building. I walk up the staircase. The first thing that I notice is graffiti, along with a collection of gouges, scrapes and manic doodles. I get to the counter and pay for two nights. The rotund guy behind the counter doesn’t even ask for my ID, all he needs is a $10 deposit for the key to my room. I hand him the money and he gives me a brown sheet for my bed and an old, gross blanket to keep me warm. I never receive a pillow. Soon after arriving one thing has become apparent, nothing in this place is clean.

My first night in Vancouver I was jet-lagged, in a grimy hostel and alone. (I flew in with my parents, but they had gone to live in another part of the city). I felt like a turtle who’d been flipped on his back. I was scared and bewildered with only about $100 to my name. Another thing…who do you trust? The don’t-talk-to-strangers mantra your parents banged into your head from birth, vanishes quickly.

Anyway, in my nervous state evening approaches and the anxiety quivering inside me propels my legs forward. I search for a place to buy food. I remember this next part so clearly I can almost reach out and touch it. I walk around a local park downtown and green clouds hit me. It’s a tempting scent and my first idea is to follow the smell because ultimately every stoner gets the munchies. This plan fails because I end up at a coffee shop of sorts where everyone inside can bring their own product (i.e. marijuana, of course) and light up. Ultimately they order some cake and other sugary treats staring at the patrons behind glass doors.

After exploring the place and talking to the stoned barista, I remember I’m hungry and leave. I end up asking people too many questions and I soon arrive at a grocery store. Days after this happened a bizarre thought crept over me – it was easier to buy pot than it was to find food. I kid you not. You have to walk past a pub to see people drinking, but smelling is for free. Most days you don’t have a choice.

For those reading this, I can sense that unspoken question on your lips…have you tried it? Yup, I have. I might be more accurate if I said the weed smoked me. I prefer operating with a clear mind and I’ve stayed away from it for many months. I also find it interesting that there is a certain amount of denial that goes with every stoner. I’ll give you an example…

There are many marijuana dispensaries in Vancouver. Let me rephrase that, medical marijuana dispensaries. The deal is you first have to go the the doctor, complain about some ache or pain or symptom and receive a letter. You take that letter to certain dispensaries who will issue you with a plastic card with a picture of you and your mug on it. This becomes your golden ticket to bounce from dispensary to dispensary at your leisure.

Now where does the denial part kick in? Well, medical marijuana…ahem, er, really? That’s like the doctor prescribing cigarettes because you have a cough. Okay, perhaps not the best analogy, I admit. There are tons or dispensaries, but I don’t see many sick people. Yes there may be some medical benefits that come from this plant, although the dispensary business I see largely as a “smokescreen” for recreational users to get a free pass. I don’t get it, maybe that means I’m not a stoner then? If there’s one thing I’d indulge in, that would be copious amounts of craft beer. Chances are it won’t offend the person I’m sitting next to, and I’m more likely to find new friends.

But wait there’s more…
After being in the country for a little more than a year, a new president came to power. I’m told this was a good thing because Stephen Harper – the previous guy – was an annoying sod. So the new party in power are called The Liberals (or Liberal Party, don’t quote me because I avoid politics like the plague). In addition to them being less like Harper, they also claim to legalize pot over the whole of Canada. This time they’re pushing for the recreational use of the drug. Part of me also thought “is the law really the thing stopping [the stoners] in the first place?” Some say it takes one to know one. Hmmm.

Okay folks, it’s time to muscle up and find a conclusion of sorts. This post is looking more like an anti-marijuana rant every minute. Maybe it is? Perhaps the best way to end this is with a poem I wrote about that first filthy hostel I stayed in. Here’s it goes:

 

clouds

i turn
the doorknob
walk up old stairs
bruised and worn down
knuckles of a fighter

“the cheapest hostel in Vancouver”
the advert said
i agreed out of ignorance
i pay for two nights
the man behind the counter
slaps down a key
hands me a pillowcase
and a brown sheet

he turns to leave but stops
“you need a blanket?”
i nod and receive
something a dog slept
in for days

i walk into the tv room
a cloud of marijuana
cloaks me like bad weather
five guys stare at the screen

he darts a look at me
then back to the screen
he sips his beer and shrugs

i wave briefly
only one of them notices
a young Chinese guy
lights up a bong

a thick cloud builds up
in the glass chamber
he inhales
empties out
the unconscious tunnel

he coughs and moans
his thick red hair
too limp to dance

he stands up
fondles his bankie
like an old photograph

he wanders
out the room
looking for food

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Canadian nuances – Part 1: The abrupt silence

You move to another country. This means many of your possessions and friends have been stripped away. You’re thrown into a whole new culture. Everyone may still speak English like you do although the longer you sit and soak up the language of a new country, the more obvious and bizarre their differences seem to be.

I’ve been in “canuck land” for a little more than a year now, and I’m starting to realize that the little things matter. I remember in the first few months I arrived I would listen to a conversation and many brand names or names of places would just zoom over my head. In a previous job of mine, one of my managers said something like “There’s nothing better than going with your family to White Spot and getting your money’s worth.” He carried on talking for a while but then I interrupted him and asked him “What is White Spot?” He had this look on his face like someone had never heard of KFC before…utter disbelief. I then found out that White Spot is a buffet style restaurant (also a franchise) that has apparently been around for years. That reminds me…do you know what else has been around for years? Assumption.

Certain things seem to annoy the crap out of me, some differences make me laugh, and then others just piss me off. I thought I’d start to write about them in the hope that I can shed light on certain things other South Africans struggle with (or maybe you’re a Canadian immigrant who can identify?)

If you talk with enough Canadians, sooner or later there’s going to be an “abrupt silence”. This is how it happens… You speak English, but with a different accent. You may be talking to a waitress at a restaurant, or some guy from Fido asking you about your cellphone account. There will be a part in the conversation where they don’t understand the what you’ve said (partly because of your accent). Instead of them asking what you mean, they will simply stop talking.

When it first happens it feels really rude. I’ve been brought up that if I don’t understand what is being said I “reach out” and say “Sorry could you explain what you mean by that?” or “I’m not quite sure I understand what you said.” Keeping quiet on the spot is just rude. This is what I thought initially but then I came to realize that even people who were fairly well mannered in other parts of the conversation also did the same thing. The exact same thing.

Here’s a simple illustration. My father and I where sitting down at a pub, having a meal fuelled by a few beers. We were trying out different ones. (The place is called Bier Craft, it would be a way too mundane to just guzzle the same stout all night). We were half way through the meal and had just ordered another two new beers.

The waitress returned with two more, and we had a brief little chit chat with her. I can’t recall the exact words I said, but I remember complimenting either the food or the beers we’d just drank. I passed a comment like “This is one of the best stouts I’ve had for miles.” She clearly didn’t understand my pronunciation of “stouts” or “miles” and couldn’t make sense of the sentence and just kept quiet on the spot. Just like that. After she left the two of us started discussing this. We were still puzzled by the fact someone keeps quiet immediately without asking us to explain what we really meant.

A few months later in, I was in a sales job and something unexpected happened. I was speaking to a customer over the phone and they were asking me for some information on one of our products. I understood the majority of what they were saying, and then they said something I didn’t understand at all. Guess what I did? Yup, it was my turn to give someone the abrupt silence treatment. I simply stopped talking. What followed was a pause in the conversation and then the same customer saying “Hello, hello…are you still there?” Fortunately I managed to save the conversation, but afterwards I felt a little embarrassed. I had unconsciously absorbed a part of the Canadian culture that infuriated me so much in the beginning.

Putting the feelings you experience aside, you start to ask yourself a more obvious question…why the hell do they do it? After I had dished out the same treatment to someone I did a little bit of introspection and realized why it happened. If you ask an immigrant why it happens, they won’t know but their closest guess will be “Well, they probably scared to say something because they are scared they offend you.” It is true that many Canadians are very politically correct, although I think the real reason goes deeper. The abrupt silence happens because the person you are talking to at the time, believes they are being considerate. Confused? Allow me to elaborate…

If you are ever in a public park, a local community centre, an ice rink and so on you have probably looked at signs that explain all the rules of the certain area. What you will often notice is that is there almost always a reference to “Please be considerate” or “No speeding. Please be aware of other skaters.” Now think of that time when you are about to enter a restaurant. There’s a stranger trying to enter at the same time as you. What happens is you both hover at the entrance doing (what I call) the dance of gentlemen.

“After you.”
“No no no please after you.”
“You were here first, you go on ahead.”

To understand the abrupt silence enigma, you have to apply this situation to a more verbal one. How I see it is…you’ve just said something a Canadian doesn’t quite understand. They pause and say nothing because (in their mind) they are being considerate and waiting for you to explain what you mean. I’m not quite sure they understand the flip side and think that keeping quite is coming off as rude. In their mind the pause they give is, in fact, giving you space to say what you’d like to say.

The other reason I’m writing this is to give advice to others for experience this silence in a negative way. Or perhaps I just want to grab my former self by the shoulders, shake them, and say “Try not to be offended, they are just waiting for you to explain what you were saying.” If you’ve been in Canada long enough, your ear learns to listen to those pauses in the conversation and to just repeat what you’re saying until you see the light bulb of recognition fire up in the other person’s eyes. Sometimes, it’s the only way.

 

PhilosopherPoet