Folgeschäden

tariq and maya

one dark one blonde

saw the other in a mirror

saw the other in naked light

felt the other in secret shadows

tariq and maya; one dark one deutsch

now you see him now you don't

do you doubt when he shouts?

do you doubt when he leaves?

do you doubt when he refuses to speak?

and what about when he breathes

deep into you chest to breast?

now you know him now you don't

tariq and maya

one dark one light

what devil sleeps between you at night

tariq and maya

one dark one blind

one turned on the other with a poisoned mind

Oddly comforting.

"Maybe unhappiness is the continuum through which a human life moves, and joy just a series of blips, of islands in the stream. Or if not unhappiness, then at least melancholy..."

- Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Soultastic.

The one naked dream I have I'm owning it.

I'm pissed off about something and walking angrily around the house. Enter bedroom of male housemate, snatch clothes off the bed. Exit bedroom.

Housemate from room: Were you just naked?

Me: I don't care.

How to wreck your clothes and look like a tool.

"To 'vintagize' a t-shirt, wash it at too high a temperature and then let it lie around wet so the wrinkles are fixed in place."

- H&M Fall magazine

Summer sins.

This was the summer where I had no job or class, went to too many deck parties, climbed up a roof, got high on a roof, curled up in bed with the spins.

This was the summer I went to my first big concert in Toronto, watched old Hollywood and French movies, ran at sunset and baked at midnight.

This was the summer I painted to blues rock, discovered a modern day Bob Dylan and bought two harmonicas.

This was the summer I fell in love with a new city, smoked for a month, overindulged in macarons, finally enjoyed French lessons, danced by the river, wore my shoes out and almost got killed on a bike.

This was the summer I slept in a lot, bummed around a lot, stopped worrying so much, took a break from thinking, spent more time dreaming.

I think it's time to get back to the worrying.

Pilgrimage.

Setting aside the aftermath of unpleasant skin allergies for a moment, the day I made contact with poison ivy was in fact quite a special one. My dad and I decided to make a trip out to his village in the countryside where he was born and raised. We have no relatives who live there anymore so I'd never been, and the last time he went back was some 16 years ago.

For the hour that we were there, my dad walked around like a celebrity offering cigarettes to the neighbours and asking them if they remembered him. They all did, but the fun part was seeing how reactions ranged from "Oh my god it's you!" to "No shit, it's you." But mostly they were happy to see us.

We found his old house, which was abandoned and had clutter around it but otherwise was in good shape.

A gaggle of geese waddled across our path.

We found a well of spring water from the mountains.

Made our way up to the top of the hill through prickly grass and plants to visit my grandma's grave.

My dad is a pretty easygoing workaholic, if that even makes sense. What I mean is he left a lot of the disciplining and parenting to my mother. She was the one who dished out the curfews, beatings, lectures and sex talks (which consisted solely of teenage pregnancy horror stories). My dad just kind of let me get on with it. So sometimes I forget how real of a generation gap exists between us, which is what I was confronted with once I stopped admiring the landscape like some asshole tourist and started imagining what it would have been like to grow up in such a place.

You know that Simpsons episode where Lisa finds out all the women in her family are, unlike her dad and uncles, geniuses? I get the impression that might be the case with the male members of my family (we'll see about my brother). My grandpa on my mum's side never went to university, and basically worked his way up in a factory to become an engineer, and ended up inventing some kind of tractor for the Russians. Something like that. He's also a self-taught musician, artist, and calligrapher. And my dad (also an engineer) worked his ass off to not only get out of a peasant village, but a country that had been intellectually, socially and economically stunted by the Cultural Revolution shit show. He was among the first group of students to go abroad. That's such the norm these days but back then, people didn't just pack up and leave China. Back then, an international scholar from China was something of a unicorn.

The generation gap between me and my grandpa and my dad basically boils down to the difference between possibility and necessity. All this to say that I feel like my indecision over my own future is a luxury. And maybe seeing it that way will take off some of the existential edge this year.

(P.S. Thanks, dad.)