tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23200988711616442792024-03-14T05:43:06.905-03:00Blinking Lights and Other Revelationssome words about some songsAmelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-32158602553025983972019-10-03T09:19:00.001-03:002019-10-03T09:19:52.725-03:00Geoffrey Ashton Brooks, February 11, 1948 - September 26, 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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My mother married Geoffrey Brooks when I was 22. I stood at their ceremony as my mom's maid of honour. I wore a dress that my then-roomate had made for me. I took the train across the country, from my home in Halifax, to be there with them. <br />
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After the ceremony, braver people and people who knew the two of them together much better than I did stood up to make toasts and speeches and I gathered all of my nerve to express a very simple thought that was probably exactly this (at least in spirit): "I don't know Geoff very well, but what I do know is that he loves my mom and he makes her happy."<br />
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One day, a couple of years later, we were having a stupid argument. We had so few of those and I wish I could remember more of the context. Probably, I was drunk. It came out that he had been hurt by what I'd said at their wedding, that he'd understood I was saying I didn't know him. Well, I didn't. Of course I didn't - I lived three provinces away! It wasn't the point though. I couldn't understand how he could have so grossly misinterpreted me but I think I do now.<br />
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Geoff had a hard time with in-betweens, and it's a bridge that I struggled to cross. Because for him - of course he knew me! We were family! Just like that. Just like forever. Of course.<br />
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Before I was Geoff's stepdaughter I was the daughter of his old friends from university and a close friend of his son's. I spent so many evenings and weekends at his house on Bywood. The first time I ever got drunk was on his homemade wine (unbeknownst to him!) Adam was a really good friend. I had a huge crush on him at the beginning of high school in fact, and he was kind and delicate in his rejection. We acted in plays together and drove around the suburbs in his k-car and were part of a group of friends who were sad and happy and honest and angsty together during those torturous, formative years. Adam's father always greeted me - and all of Adam's friends - warmly and with a familiarity that most grown-ups didn't show. He was respectful enough (and knowing him as I do now, probably also busy enough) to keep his distance, but he didn't fade into the background like some friends' parents did. He made an impression, because he was kind, and remembered your name, and asked you questions, and listened to what you said.<br />
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The story of Cheryl and Geoff is the best story I know. Geoff has told me I get some of it wrong, but he's also told me he likes my version better, so here goes: Geoff and my father, John, were roommates in co-op housing when they went to U of T. They lived on Amelia street [or perhaps my father lived there when he was in that commune], which is where I got my name. My brother is also a Geoffrey with a G, the spelling inspired by Geoffrey Brooks' spelling [or perhaps from some other source]. They all lost touch until I started high school and began talking about my friend Adam Brooks. My parents were quick to make the connection and were able to reconnect. After high school, after my first failed attempt at university, after my parents' divorce, I called Adam to let him know I was moving to Halifax, and to see if he wanted to grab a coffee or a beer as it had been a while. He wasn't home, so I spoke with his father who asked how my mother was doing; he knew my parents had separated. She had just walked into the room and I told him so and they talked and the rest is history. I think the parts in square brackets are the parts that are embellished and I'm sure there are a couple of people around who could set the record straight, but I'd rather keep telling Geoff's favourite version. In any case, clearly, it was meant to be.<br />
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I loved Geoff, initially, because of how well he loved my favourite people. He embraced not only my mother, but my two brothers as well. He has shown so much support not only for his own two sons, but for his two stepsons as well. There are particular stories that are for them to share that got cemented into my perception of him, warmed my still somewhat reserved heart.<br />
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I really got to know Geoff in my thirties, when I moved back to Toronto - into his home, in fact, on and off, for a significant part of that decade. He did not just <i>let me </i>move in but <i>welcomed </i>me, offerimg so much support and warmth.<br />
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Geoff was kind of the opposite of me. He was the kind of person who bargained with people. He always got a good deal but I thought he was pretty abrasive. (I, of course, never got a good deal). When he saw something that needed doing he got up and did it immediately, usually enlisting those of us in his vicinity. I probably could have finished another couple of chapters of my book, but I would have never gotten that dock in the water or that battery filled without him. I have a dad whom I love very much, but he's never been the kind of dad to buy me a toolkit or teach me how to cook a steak or how to store my scooter over the winter. These are lifeskills I desperately lacked, needed, and am eternally grateful for.<br />
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Words feel like not enough. This is how I show people I care but the actions are the things.<br />
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I hope I am a less judgemental person because of Geoff. I hope that I am a more assertive person because of Geoff. I hope I am more present for my family, which is bigger than it was before, because of Geoff.<br />
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I wasn't ready for him to go. I think maybe he was, and it's okay, but I wish I'd said all the stuff. I hope he knows. I absolutely, totally know.<br />
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Thank you, Geoff, for loving my mother the way you did. She deserved a good man and you were so worthy of her love. Thank you for taking her on adventures and listening to her and sharing experiences and thoughts with her. Thank you for being yourself with her and thank you for letting her be her wonderful self. Love and happiness are still the best reasons to commit to anyone, you know.<br />
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And now that I know you, I couldn't be more pleased that you were the person who loved my mom and made her so happy.<br />
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<br />Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-27484781793998221622019-03-09T11:58:00.000-04:002019-03-09T11:58:50.186-04:00Cover Me Up<br />
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<br />
For three years now, I have shared my life with Andy. It's the happiest I have ever been, and I had no idea it could be like this.<br />
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I was single for a very long time before I met Andy, and I was sort of resigned to it. I mean, I wanted to meet somebody, but I also felt okay with the idea that it might not work out that way. I even appreciated the adventures I had as things that would be harder to do if I had a partner to consider. And I was lucky and grateful to have truly close friendships and a very supportive family including very awesome nieces. Really, my life was not bad.<br />
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I always knew that if I were to meet someone, it would be
imperative that he be smart, interesting, and have great taste in the
things that matter to me, especially in music. He had to also, of
course, share the same kind of values and not be a misogynist homophobe
or something, and he had to treat people with decency. But I guess I
thought most of the other things were negotiable. Mostly, I imagined
ending up with someone who was kind of sullen, or reserved, or hated
being out embracing the world and the people that I love in it.
Or a dog person. Because who gets everything, right?<br />
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ME! I DO!<br />
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I'm not saying Andy's perfect, but he truly is perfect <i>for me</i>. After maybe three tentative dates we were both all in. He's felt familiar and it has been easy almost from the beginning.<br />
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Whenever we are together, Andy makes me feel beautiful and valued. He always let me know how glad he is to be in my company, how enriched his life is because I'm in it. We laugh together and talk closely and there is never anything I hold back. We love to spend time alone together and we also love to spend time together with the other people we love. We love to drive to little towns in Ontario and find out where the best breakfasts and butter tarts are. We love to explore neighbourhoods within the city we call home and trails on the outskirts of towns we've never heard of. But really, anything we do together is fun because we are doing it together. I hope I never take for granted how lucky I am, how good and kind and loving and wonderful this man I get to be with is.<br />
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Sometimes we talk about how we met at exactly the right time in our lives.
How if I had met Andy before, he would have seemed bitter and angry
with the world. And if he had known me in my drinking days I would have been sloppy and annoying and aimless. It is hard for either of us to imagine the other like that.<br />
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Andy and I discovered Jason Isbell's album together one Sunday afternoon during our first year together. It all resonates with me - such a great recovery album.<br />
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"Cover Me Up" always reminds me of Andy - how vulnerable and loving he is and makes me and how this is the brilliant and unexpected reward for putting in that time and effort to grow and become the people we know each other to be.<br />
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Happy 3rd Anniversary, Andy. You are the love of my life. Every day I am so grateful I get to share this life with you. These little words don't do us justice of course, but <i>you know what I mean.</i><br />
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<span> Cover Me Up - Jason Isbell</span></div>
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<span>A heart on the run keeps a hand on the gun</span></div>
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<span>You can't trust anyone</span><br /><span>I was so sure what I needed was more</span><br /><span>Tried to shoot out the sun</span><br /><span>Days when we raged, we flew off the page</span><br /><span>Such damage was done</span><br /><span>But I made it through, 'cause somebody knew</span><br /><span>I was meant for someone</span></div>
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<span>So girl, leave your boots by the bed</span><br /><span>We ain't leaving this room</span><br /><span>Till someone needs medical help</span><br /><span>Or the magnolias bloom</span><br /><span>It's cold in this house and I ain't going out to chop wood</span><br /><span>So cover me up and know you're enough</span><br /><span>To use me for good</span></div>
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<span>Put your faith to the test when I tore off your dress</span><br /><span>In Richmond on high</span><br /><span>But I sobered up and I swore off that stuff</span><br /><span>Forever this time</span><br /><span>And the old lover's sing</span><br /><span>“I thought it'd be me who helped him get home”</span><br /><span>But home was a dream</span><br /><span>One I'd never seen till you came along</span></div>
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So girl hang your dress up to dry </div>
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We ain't leavin' this room<br />
Til Percy Priest breaks open wide<br />
And the river runs through<br />
Carries this house on the stones like a piece of drift wood<br />
Cover me up and know you're enough to use me for good</div>
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Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-10517036287648808002016-08-18T12:42:00.000-03:002018-02-02T15:58:05.579-04:00Wheat Kings<br />
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It seems every Canadian is writing about The Tragically Hip this month, and of course, because this ubiquitous Canadian band has been especially ubiquitous this summer. They are playing their very last shows, and it's sad, and admirable, and even those of us who aren't really fans are, as Canadians, so tied to this event.<br />
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In the fall of 1994 I moved to Sudbury to attend Laurentian University, and I lived in residence. It was a strange experience for me. My last year of high school had been spent at an alternative school where the status quo was constantly being questioned, and where I was surrounded by artists and musicians and weirdos. Laurentian, in contrast - and especially, residence - was a very different world. I found people I liked, and even (a very few) people I connected with, but I mostly felt out of place and out of sorts there. The drinking and late nights I could keep up with, but not the loudness that accompanied them. There was a testosterone-fueled, jocky atmosphere I recognized from American movies about American high schools, but I never had that kind of high school experience until I went to university.<br />
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I don't believe The Tragically Hip are those kinds of people, but when I think about them, I think about that kind of crowd, and I imagine the band lost amid a sea of keggers, where they are both encouraging and separate. I don't know what band Sloan is referring to with the line, "It's not the band I hate, it's their fans," but it has always made me think of The Tragically Hip.<br />
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But my fondest memory of their music is of sitting in the stairwell between the ninth and tenth floors of University College residence and singing along to "Wheat Kings" in a quiet moment of respite from the loudness, the falling-down-drunk of it all. It's the sitting-down-drunk, and the sharing of songs. Even though I am not really a fan, I really love that song, and we all knew all the words and in that moment of sharing I felt okay - even <i>good</i> - about the place I was in.<br />
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My other favourite Hip song is <i>Courage.</i> I read Hugh MacLennan's <i>The Watch That Ends the Night </i>in my Canadian Literature class at Laurentian, and it was one of my favourite books for many years. It was the version sung by Sarah Polley, in one of my favourite films, <i>The Sweet Hereafter</i>, though, that really made me love it. <br />
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Mostly, I have always thought The Tragically Hip were kind of boring musically. Always, though, I would follow that opinion up, quickly, with, "but I really respect them." It's undeniable that the lyrics are good. It's also undeniable that the spirit of the band is good. Gord Downie and his band have tapped into something that unifies every Canadian, and not just because so many of their songs are about Canada but sure, and of course, partly because of that. Downie is a storyteller, and he is not a blind nationalist, but someone who is curious and manages to light up dark corners and show them to people who might not otherwise listen or know where to look.<br />
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I'm going to be at a folk festival in Peterborough the night of the Hip's last show, which is being broadcast across Canada, but I think I will try to steal away for a bit, to find a television set in a nearby bar that is broadcasting it (I don't think this will be difficult).<br />
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When I feel like I don't fit in, it's not usually because I don't want to, but because I don't know how. And I love it that The Tragically Hip can tear down those walls. Gord Downie is such a strange and original frontperson for a straight up rock band and that alone lets you know it's not, actually, just a straight up rock band. And what I felt, sitting in that stairwell and singing "Wheat Kings" with those other voices, was connection and inclusion.<br />
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Canada loves you, Gord Downie, and I love that.Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-61051337649972925592015-09-25T16:55:00.000-03:002016-02-22T16:06:42.582-04:00Twenty-Five Miles<br />
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Some friendships feel so natural right from the start and with some, I have found myself surprised to discover that I'm just suddenly in the midst of one, after years of getting to know and showing up for one another. One of my most surprising and rewarding friendships is with Jackie, and today, on the eve of my week-end trip to Cleveland, I'm thinking about the first rust belt city road trip I took, with Jackie, a couple of years ago, to Detroit.<br />
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Jackie and I met as Cultural Studies students at Mount Saint Vincent University. I returned to university as a mature student, and being ten years older than most of my classmates, Jackie included, I didn't really expect to make friends there. And I definitely didn't expect to make friends with Jackie, even despite the age difference, because she seemed so serious and, well, <i>not a drunk</i>. I was still drinking very much then, and although I didn't show up to class drunk, I was certainly typically hungover, and certainly always aware, by that point, that it was a problem. I was guarded, secretive, ashamed of, and committed to my drinking, and there really wasn't room in my life for people who didn't drink similarly. Until that one time we got wasted together at our professor's barbeque I actually thought that Jackie actively disliked me.<br />
<br />
There is something to be said for the power of alcohol as a social lubricant, and I have fond memories of drinking with Jackie. That first night of confessional "<i>I</i> thought <i>you</i> disliked <i>me</i>!" could have been shelved as a fond memory of a person I really quite like, a friendship-that-almost-was. I have so many of those. But instead, it marked the beginning of an actual friendship that has now lasted for nearly a decade. <br />
<br />
I think that Jackie, though she likes people, is primarily an introvert, and she can be hard to read. People like that have a tendency to freak me out. Happy and sad are so easy for me, but the stuff in between often gets transformed into "[she] hates me." We started hanging out. She'd come to rock shows with me, and hang out at the Granite brewery with me, and then, when I gave up the booze, our friendship transitioned, more easily than many, into one that didn't revolve around alcohol. Because, really, it never had. We were school friends.<br />
<br />
A few years ago, Jackie and I both found ourselves in southern Ontario. In different cities for most of the time, but in ones that were close enough for week-end visits. I don't know that I thought, consciously, that our friendship would just fade away, but I don't think I thought it would sustain itself the way it has, that she would turn out to be one of the closest friends I have.<br />
<br />
Jackie lives her life in such a respectable, true-to-herself, and interesting way. When I think about how, when I first met her, I'd determined that my chaotic, alcohol-and-rock-and-roll fueled life was so separate from her peaceful, suburban, (and, yes, <i>boring</i>) life I have to also reflect that neither of us were, then, living the lives that we wanted for ourselves, in such opposite but equal ways.<br />
<br />
Those of you who know me - and I'm quite sure that includes all of my readership - know that I had been trying to get to Detroit for years. When I moved from Halifax back to Toronto, proximity to Detroit was one of the things I was most excited about, and I thought I'd be taking a trip there during the first month I was back in town. But it didn't happen for another two and a half years. It was difficult to convince people to drive there with me, and I don't drive, and the Motor City could not really be done without a car.<br />
<br />
Canadians are just crazy about the United States. Watching our much
larger, aggressive, flashy, broken neighbour to the south can make us
feel superior and it can also make us feel lacking. There's some very
interesting stuff going on in Canada, but the United States always seems
more interesting. There's some terrible stuff going on in Canada, but
the United States always seems worse. I would never give up the security
of living in a relatively safe country; having access to universal
healthcare and knowing that my neighbours aren't all armed are two
things I value very much. But I also believe there's something so
romantic about living in a very fucked up situation and trying to make
it better on your own or with your community, on a smaller scale. There are so many American cities that are in rough shape because of systemic racism, economic disparity, lack of access to social programs and health care, easy access to firearms, etc., etc., and Detroit is, of course, the most fucked up - and also the most heart-warmingly hopeful - American city of all.<br />
<br />
It turns out that Jackie and I share a lot of the same values, and
foremost among those is an interest in community-building. So, of course, Jackie
would be the best person with whom to travel to Detroit. Inspired by my enthusiasm and her own equal sense of adventure, we finally found a week-end that worked for both of us, at the end of
February 2014, in the midst of the coldest winter any of us Ontarioians can
remember.<br />
<br />
Via roads that appeared not to have been serviced for decades, we found ourselves in small businesses run by and packed with Detroit-enthusiasts, past homes that were caving in on themselves, and to a market filled with produce that was grown locally on repurposed, abandoned land. We listened to The White Stripes, and Motown compilations, and, especially, over and over, Edwin Starr singing about how far he had gone and the increasingly short distance that remained. <br />
<br />
A couple of week-ends ago, I spent time with Jackie at her beautiful home in Hamilton, where I met her friends and ate the delicious breakfast she prepared from food grown on the farm she works on and from neighbouring farms. We talked about the sad and happy things in our lives but I was reminded, again, of how our friendship is not just about the things that we tell one another, but about the things that we do. We keep on showing up, glad to see one other, year after year.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow I'm going to Cleveland just to see what it's all about, with a couple of people I'm just getting to know, to see what they're all about. I've made an Ohio mixed cd. I'm hopeful and excited. People and cities and music are pretty much my favourite things, in that order. Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-74924924541707600212015-07-26T13:57:00.001-03:002015-07-26T20:43:58.510-03:00Comfortably Numb<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjpxjwFjmb9poghiYUz8VqNyqhVMldT_8TN61UU8PTTpZLi0xhb3ul22L9SsUkTP9_pbZhY29u2GrSB8r-lvadx9P1NwITCOta9NU9AXYeEfnwh7Ej4cLVODui3-voNICLwQXNWPaAj8M/s1600/katherineandi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjpxjwFjmb9poghiYUz8VqNyqhVMldT_8TN61UU8PTTpZLi0xhb3ul22L9SsUkTP9_pbZhY29u2GrSB8r-lvadx9P1NwITCOta9NU9AXYeEfnwh7Ej4cLVODui3-voNICLwQXNWPaAj8M/s320/katherineandi.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Katherine and I both share the memory of the first time we laid eyes on one another, with our parents and a number of other grade eight students, in </span>Mr. Kirkwood's English classroom at Martingrove Collegiate. Some months later, in grade nine, and actually students in his English class, we discussed that day, and how we had been drawn to one another. In typical Amelia fashion, my thoughts had been, "She looks so cool. She'll never want to be my friend." In fact, she did want to be my friend, and in fact, she was not particulary "cool," despite what I and several of her young suitors initially believed.<br />
<br />
Katherine was and is unusual, smart, wise about people in a way few people are, and unwise about certain social conventions in a way few people are, a dreamer, a writer, a loyal friend, and a truly remarkable human being. But "cool" is not even in Katherine's vocabulary.<br />
<br />
Katherine-isms include an unbelievably poor sense of direction, especially when one lives in a city as sensibly laid out as Toronto (Had we grown up in Halifax, I am sure she would still be trying to find her way home), long-winded voicemail messages, and, still astonishing to me is this last one - the bizzaro, opposite world ability to come across as a snob.<br />
<br />
There is not a snobby bone in Katherine's body, which is no small feat for someone with such refined taste in literature. She is one of the least judgemental people I have ever met in my life. Yet throughout highschool, I repeatedly heard her referred to as a snob. Friends and I would sometimes refer to her as a "little grown-up," because she was uncommonly articulate and used multi-sylabic words and, having grown up without cable television and with a steady diet of classical music, was completely unaware of the popular culture touchstones that united our peers. I made fun of her a lot, about all of that stuff, and, I presume, because we are still best friends 25 years later, that she took it all in jest or, just as often, completely missed it. She talked smart and she was often lost in her own thoughts, seemingly distant, and these things, I guess, made her appear snobby. But really, I never saw how people saw that; I only knew that they did because they told me.<br />
<br />
Katherine was also very cute and small and all of the boys were in love with her. I mean, it was crazy the boys that were in love with her - the jock boys, the nerd boys, the weird boys, even the right-wing conservative boys. Several of my crushes developed crushes on her. Perpetually single in high school, I often felt like a third wheel, and I sometimes resented it, but my resentment felt less like "Why do they like <i>her</i>?" and more like, "They don't even like <i>her</i>." Because, for the most part, Katherine dated nice, unremarkable boys. I do think they saw something special in her but I don't think they had any idea what it was.<br />
<br />
Katherine's favourite song for a very long time, when we were in high school, was Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." While it was <i>I </i>who introdued <i>Katherine</i> to many cultural touchstones, it was Katherine who introduced me to Pink Floyd, by way, I presume, of her older brother Tony (who also introduced her, and then I, to Billy Bragg!)<br />
<br />
Because it was her favourite song, she carried it into her earliest relationships, and for two consecutive ones, it became "their" song. Two! Consecutive relationships! "Comfortably Numb"! As inappropriate as that might seem, it isn't hard to see how that song could have resonated with someone who felt so outside of the whole high school experience that her peers - myself and her boyfriends included - were such active participants in: "You are only coming through in waves / Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying."<br />
<br />
It is hard to paint a picture of Katherine because she isn't a type. I have never met anyone who reminded me of Katherine. And that's part of the pleasure of knowing Katherine.<br />
<br />
Most of the pleasure of knowing Katherine involves words. It has been getting to read her writing throughout the years - she is one of the best writers I know. And it has been lengthy discussions about people - their behaviours and oddities and particular reactions to particular situations. And when I talk to her about myself and my life, I am always reminded of how she really knows me and how I am in the world, better than almost anyone.<br />
<br />
When I have teased Katherine about certain aspects of her behaviour, she has retorted that some of these traits are Amelia traits as well, and I do see a small amount of Katherine lite in some of my behaviour. Something I like and believe about myself is that I am someone who is difficult to pigeon-hole; that I am full of contradictions. And she was and is certainly like that in the very biggest way - so concurrently wise and unwise.<br />
<br />
Katherine has been married for several years now to a man, Andrew, who makes sense for her, and who I'm enormously happy to see her with and to get to have in my life as well. He is strange and thoughtful and smart and kind in ways that are not quite like Katherine's ways but that are complimentary. And he really sees her, which is what I have always hoped for for Katherine.<br />
<br />
A couple of weeks ago I attended Katherine's son's 16th birthday party with Katherine and Andrew. It had been years since I had seen him and he has become, so seemingly suddenly, a teenager, with friends and enthusiasm and a passion for weird art projects. He looks like her, and I could not help recalling Katherine and I at that age. How difficult and devastating and exciting and new everything is when you're 16, and how lucky Katherine and I were to have had one another.Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-61071408306969600202015-01-02T17:28:00.003-04:002015-01-02T17:41:31.444-04:00Sun in an Empty RoomI always think about moving away from Hunter street when I think: Moving
Day. I didn't live there for very long - just 16 months, I believe -
and I had about ten roommates during my time there so it felt too
transient to ever feel like home. But I think it was significant. I think I lost and learned and changed a lot during that time. I made some very significant choices that might have been the wrong ones.<br />
<br />
In the year 2001, after spending a few months travelling across Canada, I moved back to Halifax because that was where my heart lived. My boyfriend Sean joined me there a couple of months later, because it was lucky that we both wanted to leave Toronto for the East Coast. Or we remained together in Toronto because we both knew we were going to leave, together. I don't know. I loved him, but not like I loved Halifax. I had known immediately, intuitively, that Halifax was my soulmate.<br />
<br />
I wasn't conscious of what building a life really meant when I moved to Halifax, either the first time, in 1997, or the second time, in 2001. I experienced Halifax as authentic and freeing and creative and wild and beautiful and kind and these were the things that mattered to me when I was in my early- to mid-twenties.<br />
<br />
Luke and Claudia had found the apartment. I had lived with them for a year on Moran street, in 1998, and they had been great roommates and friends. Sean and I had decided to live with other people to save some money and because it was initially unclear when he would actually be arriving. It was a large 4 bedroom apartment on the top floor of a house in a beautiful part of the city. They were a couple, as well, and so we had all kinds of extra space. It was nice before Sean arrived, but it was awful after.<br />
<br />
I don't remember all the details anymore, but I will accept the responsibility for the deterioration of that living situation. I think I felt like I was trying to be a peacemaker and felt pulled in a couple of different directions. But I knew how stubborn Sean was and I knew in my gut as soon as I got back to Halifax and was reunited with my old friends, that Sean would not be a good fit despite Luke and Claudia being super easy to get along with. Luke and Claudia gave up the apartment a few months later, found a place of their own, and for the next year, Sean and I lived with a succesion of temporary roommates.<br />
<br />
Dan was the best because he was hardly ever there. He spent most of his time in a cabin up north or at his girlfriend's house. I think he just wanted to maintain his own address and a place to store his stuff. He had band practice there in the kitchen, and his band was great, and he also made wine there.<br />
<br />
Dimitris became fast friends with both Sean and I. He was always on and hilarious and kept up with (or at least <i>put </i>up with) our drinking. But the friendship was brief, one of those crush friendships, where everything's exciting and new and fun for a couple of months but starts to fade just as quickly. When Andrea and Margaret moved in, his friendship affections shifted to Margaret, and I think Sean and I both felt a little jilted. We liked Margaret a lot too, though. She and Andrea were a couple that seemed close to ending; Margaret spent way more time with us than with her girlfriend, and that felt kind of weird.<br />
<br />
But the people, the timeline, the details, everything is hazy. It was a big turning point in my drinking career.<br />
<br />
Sean was into a concoction he called "green death" that year, made out if some kind of green pop and probably rum but possibly gin. On his days off, he would start drinking as soon as he got up, and I remember knowing that this was going <i>too far.</i> He was my barometer then. If I worried about my own drinking I would rationalize that <i>I </i>didn't start drinking as soon as I woke up. <br />
<br />
I remember setting limits for myself then. I was doing homecare work at the time, and I saw one of my clients at 9 am on weekdays, and I knew I couldn't be drunk while I was doing this, so midnight became my week night cut-off time. I was always drunk by midnight. I was always hungover at work.<br />
<br />
I used to siphen off some of Dan's wine when no one was home and the fridge was empty.<br />
<br />
Before too long I stopped doing homecare work and I got a job working at Propeller, a small local brewery, on the bottling line. An enormous perk was that our fridge was always filled with free beer. Rationalizing that I didn't have to be on my game the same way to work at Propeller, I got rid of the stupid cut-off time rule.<br />
<br />
I was miserable at Propeller. It was a really physically exhausting job, and I was always doing it hungover. I started socializing less with people outside of my home becasue I was always so exhausted. <br />
<br />
I still said I was a social drinker because I was, you know, socilaizing with my boyfriend every night. And Dimitris. And our friend Kelly was usually there, too. But I knew, then, that I had turned the wrong corner. <br />
<br />
Something happened to the dynamics of my relationship with Sean during that time, too. I felt like, before, and especially when I was travelling, I was in control, and I was choosing. But it started to feel like Sean was in control, like he was choosing. I didn't want to leave him but I knew then that I didn't have the power to make him stay. And I certainly didn't have the gumption to turn our little world on its head. I opted for a less dramatic living situation and just the two of us. But very little changed when we moved to Allan street.<br />
<br />
On moving day, Sean and I got stuck with the brunt of the cleaning. He let me sleep while he did much (probably most) of the work, and woke me up at dawn on moving day to finish the job while he got a few hours of sleep. He'd just gotten the new Norah Jones album, <i>Come Away With Me</i>, and he set it up for me before he retired. I cleaned the front room with that on repeat, the only soul awake, considering the past 16 months and the future, and I felt alone but a remarkable sense of peace.<br />
<br />
We'd stay together for a couple more years, and when I moved out of Allan street it was drawn out and devastating. The break-up is a scene I remember but the moving day is not. The Hunter street move was far more dramatic and certainly a sign of things to come. Although it's Norah Jones that ruled that morning, it's The Weakerthans' "Sun in an Empty Room" that I'm choosing in hindsight.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Sun in an Empty Room - The Weakerthans</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Now that the furniture's returning to its goodwill home<br />
With dishes in last week's paper -<br />
Rumors and elections, crosswords, an unending wars -<br />
That blacken our fingers, smear their prints on every door pulled shut<br />
<br />
Now that the last month's rent is scheming with the damage deposit,<br />
Take this moment to decide (sun in an empty room)<br />
If we meant it, if we tried (sun in an empty room)<br />
Or felt around for far too much (sun in an empty room)<br />
From things that accidentally touched (sun in an empty room)<br />
<br />
Hands that we nearly hold with pennies for the GST<br />
The shoulders we lean our shoulders into on the subway, mutter an apology<br />
The shins that we kick beneath the table, that reflexive cry<br />
The faces we meet one awkward beat too long and terrified<br />
<br />
Know the things we need to say (sun in an empty room)<br />
Have been said already anyway (sun in an empty room)<br />
By parallelograms of light (sun in an empty room)<br />
On walls that we repainted white (sun in an empty room)<br />
<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
Sun in an empty room<br />
<br />
Take eight minutes and divide (sun in an empty room)<br />
By ninety million lonely miles (sun in an empty room)<br />
And watch a shadow cross the floor (sun in an empty room)<br />
We don't live here anymore (sun in an empty room)</div>
Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-82236039198331180322014-11-01T13:48:00.000-03:002016-02-22T16:07:48.454-04:00This post is not inspired by a song, but by that former CBC radio host.<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-28482522-6c3d-a458-1544-412a1e85a1cf" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I want to share a story about something that happened to me. It doesn’t sound like it’s something that happened to me because the worst of it happened to and because of people who are not me. But I don’t know what they were thinking or are currently thinking about this event. I don’t know the background or the aftermath and that isn’t my story.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I used to be a regular at a bar in Halifax, as many of you know, as many of you were there. I was (and still am, just no longer actively) an alcoholic. I did some regrettable, embarrassing things during my tenure there, of course, and I watched regrettable, embarrassing things happen around me. But I never felt unsafe. On the contrary, I felt </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">so</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> safe, surrounded by good friends with kind hearts. And the people who ran and tended the bar, I felt, were looking out for us.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">There was a couple who hung out there a fair bit and with whom I was friendly. They were drinking buds of mine. Not really friends, but potential friends I thought at one time, and people I really liked. I knew the man better than I knew the woman, because he’d spent more time at the bar and we’d had more conversations. He never seemed sketchy or unsafe, and this is maybe what gets me the most. I always thought I was a good judge of character.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">One night, after last call, the three of us decided to continue drinking at a bar down the street called Reflections, which had a cabaret license that allowed it to continue serving alcohol until 3:30 am. Then I went back to their place where we continued drinking for god knows how long. Probably not that long, given the timeline. We were lost in conversation and having an excellent time and we didn’t want the party to end. This was not a particularly strange thing for me to be doing at that time in my life. I was a partier, and a drunk.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I crashed on their couch. Also, not notably unusual behaviour.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">At some point, when it was light out, I woke up because I heard banging coming from upstairs, where the couple’s bedroom was. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. I was disoriented because I was not in my own bed and because I was drunk. Within a few seconds I remembered where I was and how I had gotten there. The banging continued. This, I didn’t understand. I don’t remember hearing any yelling, but I may have. I remember that the impression I had was that someone was being thrown against a wall. It sounded forceful, violent, and scary. I think I must have heard voices but I don’t remember anymore. It was a long time ago. I remember yelling up the stairs, somewhat meekly, “Are you okay?” The sounds stopped for a moment, and then filled the silence again. I got the hell out of there.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I was pretty sure this was going on: He was beating the shit out of her. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here, I know, I did exactly the right thing. I left the presumably violent situation and I called the police as soon as I could locate a payphone.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I looked at their street address and repeated it over and over in my head so I wouldn’t forget it. I walked up towards Gottingen street, which wasn’t very far away but felt like miles. I was drunk and sleep deprived and I was suddenly in the midst of people rushing to work like it was a regular day. I think I was in shock. I had been fortunate enough to never have experienced that kind of violence first-hand, and it really stunned me. I searched for a payphone. These were few and far between because most people had cell phones by then. I finally found one and I called 911 and I told them the address and that I thought there was a domestic situation.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I got home in a daze and I told my roommate about it and I must have slept, but I don’t know how the rest of that day went.</span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">That night there was a music event at “my” bar, and I was working the door, as I frequently did, in exchange for free beer. </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I told people what happened. I told my friends, who knew him too. They believed me and they were shocked too. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Some time over the next few days a friend of the abuser came into the bar and relayed that the abused had been taken to the hospital after the police were called, and the she had been badly beaten. I overheard him telling this to the bartender. I didn’t say anything and I don’t know why. I hated the way he said it though, like he was just relaying some gossip, like it was </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">interesting</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> rather than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">horrifying</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. This friend of the abuser still hung out with the abuser, which I knew because I saw them both sitting at the bar together way too soon after the incident. The bartender served them both, like nothing had happened. This went on at the downstairs bar while I was sitting at the door in the upstairs bar, and someone came upstairs to let me know he was there.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wish I’d been louder about this part of my story because this part really hurt me. I don’t know what they were actually thinking but I know that the men who worked at that bar continued to serve the abuser even though they knew he had beaten the shit out of his girlfriend and scared the shit out of me. I don’t think they disbelieved me but I don’t know how they could do that.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The abuser wasn’t a regular anymore, and I think he mostly tried to avoid me, but I know he still popped in on occasion, and once, when I was sitting at a table by the window, he walked by and banged on the glass right in front of me, intentionally intimidating. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I had a disappointing conversation with the abused in the aftermath. I’d been worried about her, and had wanted to get in touch but hadn’t known how. We spoke outside the bar once. She asked me if I’d been the one to call the police. She said she assumed I had been but wasn’t sure. She told me it had been really good for their relationship, that it had straightened him out, and that they were much healthier now. That he used to abuse her regularly but didn’t anymore. It broke my heart.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Should I be saying his name? I know his name. I know some of you facebook friends of mine know his name, too. Maybe he </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">has</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> changed, has gotten help and is truly a better and remorseful person. If I say his name though it’s like saying her name and her story is not mine to tell. She can tell it if, when, and how she wants to.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wish I’d been louder about how betrayed I felt by some of the people at that bar. I felt like it wasn’t my right because it wasn’t my bar and maybe that’s true, except it</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">my right to talk about how I feel. And when I saw him in there with mutual acquaintances, I wish I’d said, “How could you? Don’t you care about what this man has done? Don’t you care that he makes this place unsafe? How can you sit there with him?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I don’t know what anyone except for me believes about what happened, and may continue to happen, for all I know. I have never heard his side, and I imagine his friends have.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But I think I should talk about it because this is one of the things I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on this week, and I think it’s an example of how our culture makes it easy for people to get away with abusive behaviour. Everybody knew, and everybody was still nice to him. He got away with it. I don’t even know how complicit I was and am in this myself. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I relay this story, because it’s not really something that happened to me. But the actual waking up in their house and calling the police and walking home part of the story, this is one of - if not the most - traumatic things that has ever happened to me. I really did feel in a state of shock. And I think about her, and all of the other people I know who have actually been victims of violence, and I feel so goddamned lucky. How fucked up is it that I feel </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">lucky</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">exceptional</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, to have never been a victim of violence?</span></div>
Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-30278343536038731132012-09-01T14:24:00.000-03:002012-09-01T14:41:58.421-03:00Thunder RoadFollowing Bruce Springsteen's phenomenal 3 and a half hour performance last week-end, I sat in a backyard in southern Etobicoke, with somebody who has surprisingly become--remained?--one of my closest friends. Richard nursed a beer and I, a cola. We smoked cigarettes in the dark and enjoyed the refreshingly cool summer night while his wife and son slept soundly inside. <br />
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I enjoy these evenings, immeasurably. We talk closely about things and people we miss, have known, about the ways we've grown and how we have or haven't managed to achieve what we thought we would when we imagined our lives from a 20-years-ago vantage point, when we sat in another (more central) Etobicoke backyard as another summer neared its end.<br />
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We used to be louder. And much, much drunker. Richard refers to the guys occupying the house on the other side of the fence as "the bros.," because they are up until 2 am and speaking in inapropriately loud voices, like he doesn't remember the shed he and Kevin created in Kevin's backyard to be a neighbourhood hang-out, to always be filled with Jack Daniels and Marlboro's and merriment. <br />
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One of the things we talked about last week-end was our longing for intensity, how we missed the drama and the abandon we used to get from and share with our friends. About how we are all so much more careful now, about how we share ourselves reservedly, smartly, more occasionally. We both attribute this to maturity; to having experienced the pitfalls of too much openness, the betrayals and bad decisions and the knowledge that people change. But I also mourn drinking a little bit, here. For most of the close conversations in the dark and shoulders I have cried on, there was a lot of alcohol involved. <br />
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Seeing Bruce Springsteen was a dream come true, but as I purchased the tickets for his date at the Skydome (the Rogers Centre) it was with no small amount of resignation. I didn't want to see him in Toronto. I wanted to see him in Moncton. And I absolutely would have, if only it had been one year earlier, if only I still lived in Halifax.<br />
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The best concert I have ever seen was Paul McCartney, when he played the Halifax Common. Unlike Springsteen, whom I had to come to in my own way, McCartney has forever been a part of my life. I saw him with the person who likely knows me better than anybody in the world, and also with a community of people of all different ages and all different experiences, in a city that I am head-over-heals in love with. A city, too, that rarely gets to experience such an event. McCartney probably swings through Toronto on every tour, but he'd never been to Halifax. All those people, raised on The Beatles, raising their voices to sing along to songs they had known forever, by one of the remaining, living members, of the best band in history. A chance that so many of us never thought we'd get. It was unbelievable, thrilling, unforgettable, and, I suspect, unsurpassable. <br />
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But Springsteen, perhaps, would be the next best thing to a Beatle, and every year rumours abounded. With every summer that passed without a formal announcement of an Atlantic Canadian date, Springsteen fans seemed more and more disheartened. <br />
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I almost went to see him in Boston, during his tour for <em>We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions</em>. And when I say "almost," I mean that I put a lot of thought into the acknowledged fantasy of seeing him in Boston. I was broke, but my friend Jen and I spent so many evenings at the Granite Brewery, trying to come up with a scheme to get us there. A driver, a vehicle, and perhaps a sponsorship. We did not go to Boston. We sat in the bar and enjoyed his music on vinyl night. <br />
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In 2001 I had a roommate, Luke, who had a copy of <em>Nebraska, </em>and that was my in. I never thought much about Springsteen before then. Or when I did, it was with a bit of derision for the anthemic "Born in the U.S.A." that muscled its way into memories of my childhood. I hated the saxophones. I have always hated that instrument; still do. <br />
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<em>Nebraska</em>, of course, is a different creature, and surely the best point of entry for someone like myself. The sparse instrumentation and fascinating naratives sucked me in, and I figured out what I'd been missing. I started from the beginning. On those early albums his songs about youth and redemption and love still make me feel possibility. I can appreciate <em>Born in the U.S.A.</em> now, though I don't love the album in its entirety. I do, however, love every last second of <em>Born to Run</em>, including the sax. How could that album be what it is without it? It's probably my favourite Springsteen album, and I still hate the sax. <br />
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It's been my experience that music, honest and gritty words, crazy passionate inexplicable love, and being on the road to some place new are four of the five best things this world has to offer, and these things are what the Boss is all about. <br />
The other best thing is community, and this is what he fosters. <br />
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Richard and I sat three rows from the very back of the Skydome, and we got to see the entire crowd. It was only thanks to a giant screen that we could see Springsteen step out into the audience, accepting requests from fans; he was otherwise a tiny dot moving rapidly back and forth. He sweated and smiled and engaged with his audience throughout it all. No way that man's faking it, and after so many years, and so much fortune, we all know he doesn't have to do it. <br />
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So if I'd seen that in Moncton, a short drive from Halifax, with all of those people he'd never played for before, in a wide open field, McCartney would have some serious competition. <br />
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My good friend Russell got Candice to play "Thunder Road" as the very last song on the very last vinyl night on the very last night the Granite Brewery was open. I'd been sober for only a few months then, and that night was not so far removed from many others that involved a copious amount of alcohol, camaraderie, sometimes tears, and plenty of talk that sure, might have been bullshit, but was also true, too. "Thunder Road" felt like a theme song there, something that united so many of us. <br />
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The best thing about the Granite Brewery was that community just happened, because people liked the look and the feel of the place, and they liked the beer, and they could stop there after work and be welcomed and known. A lot of us had very little in common with one another. The range of ages and experience was remarkable, and when that song came on, we all raised our glasses, and we belted out the words.<br />
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<em>So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore, </em><br />
<em>Show a little faith! there's magic in the night.</em><br />
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I can't think of that song without thinking of this place, that now only exists as something imaginary, from before. I know how lucky I am to have been there. <br />
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I didn't think I'd see Bruce Springsteen at the Skydome with Richard. For a very long time I never imagined myself becoming a Springsteen fan. And I don't know that I imagined Richard and I would stay in touch after high school, as we have, that he'd stay one of my closest friends. On the surface, we really don't have that much in common. But in fact, we have decades in common. And listening to Springsteen over pints, after last call, in a bar on Barrington street is not all that different from listening to him in a suburban backyard, four years sober, looking up at stars and distracted by the bros. In mourning, in recalling, that lost intensity and closeness, it manages to find its way back to us. Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-5928492881399692192011-06-26T14:49:00.002-03:002016-02-22T17:11:25.792-04:00Dust<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I was first introduced to The Sorrys' music during the course of what was ultimately a summer fling. I dated Aaron for a month or two, and it was the kind of quick, exciting relationship I used to have when I was younger. It was fun, and I felt young and happy while I was in the midst of it. I even chose to believe in its future, a boldly optimistic decision I hadn't made since I was in my very early twenties. But it did feel like a decision, as opposed to the outlook I'd brought into my much earlier relationships. Before I chose, I felt the nagging doubts natural to an experienced thirty-something year-old, particularly in Aaron's refusal to discuss the long and significant relationship he'd recently been in, or how that might still be affecting him. When it ended, as, duh, of course it did, I spent about a week feeling angry and sad, but I got over it. I didn't even miss Aaron, and I didn't want to be his friend. It was significant, though, but its significance was virtually unrelated to Aaron, and all about me. I felt possibility. I remembered that I was worthy; that I could be seen the way Aaron saw me, however briefly. And I knew that I didn't want light. And the two of us were definitely light. I wanted brutal honesty, but I wanted that to come with faith. I had always imagined these things in opposition to one another. I had been so doubtful of every romantic relationship I'd approached since I was 22, aside from this one, and including the one that lasted for four years. I decided, post-Aaron, that I would rather get hurt than enter everything with so much cynicism, despite the odds. 'Cause it's hardly possible to beat the odds if you go into everything so certain that they're stacked against you. And besides, however things ended up, I had a really fun summer. </div>
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That was also the first time I quit drinking with real intent. I mean, I had tried to quit drinking in the past, for set periods of time - a week or two that I never made it to. This time I was going to quit drinking for good, for real. It didn't work that time, but it set the stage for several months later when I did, with a lot of help, finally manage to quit drinking for good (hopefully!). It was an incredibly optimistic thing to do, and it came out of my decision to develop a more optimistic outlook, more generally. </div>
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The other thing I got out of that summer was my introduction to The Sorrys. And listening to The Sorrys on cd is great and all, but there's nothing like a live performance, something that took me far too long to discover. I was kind of nervous about going to see The Sorrys live, because I didn't want to run into Aaron and all those weird social dynamics. That's just not a way to live your life, though, if you're a music fan and you live in Halifax. This city is small, and your history is everywhere. </div>
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Jim, Steven, and Richard are great musicians, and they sound so together, but seeing them live, you also get to see how much they are enjoying playing together. They have so much fun! Even better though, is how they remove that line between performers and audience, inviting the people in attendance to truly participate in the event. </div>
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Trevor Millet is the best front-person in Halifax, maybe even in the country. He's entertaining and sometimes slightly offensive. He gets off the stage and wanders around talking to the audience while the rest of his band remains on stage. He drinks his band-mates beers. He is unpredictable, and he doesn't seem to censor his thoughts. He's so much more than that, though, and I feel really lucky to get to know him, however peripherally. He's a really great songwriter, and what makes him such a gifted writer is undoubtedly his genuine interest in the people around him. I get the feeling sometimes that he wishes he could be living parallel lives, that would afford him the time to really get into other people's worlds. </div>
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I've been going to watch bands since I was about sixteen, and I've been lucky to have had some favourite bands who have made me feel really appreciated as a fan. Certainly the most notable and constant has been Dave Bidini, of Rheostatics. But there's also, once you get to that level, a degree to which professionalism plays a role in being personable. Not that famous people have to be nice, or remember names, but it certainly makes for better press. When I was in high school, my friends and I used to sneak in through the back doors of Lee's Palace, left ajar by Dallas Good, of Satanatras, or Derek Madison, of Grasshopper,who found us underage fans endearing I think, who got excited by our enthusiasm. They weren't that much older than we were, after all. The way I felt then? That's how I feel when I see The Sorrys play. I love that I can be 35 years old and feel excited about hearing this super amazing band play songs that I love, and then sit down with them after the show and talk like we're friends. </div>
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All of that said, I don't feel like The Sorrys are on a different planet of awesome that is far, far away. They're grown-ups, with families and careers and responsibilities. They're grown-ups like the way I should be, could be, would be, if I had made different choices. I write songs myself, and Trevor likes my songs. I mean, he has really listened to and really appreciates them in a way that I don't think many people have or do. It means a lot to me that anybody could be affected by what I write, and especially somebody who writes great lines like, "I have an aversion to disaster, but I like the edges rough." The mutual appreciation makes the audience-performer line even blurrier, and I like that. It's more interesting, and fuller. </div>
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In my quest to live my life, and to experience relationships that are clear-eyed, honest, and built on understanding, while also being fun and exciting, I would like my soundtrack to be reflective of that as well.</div>
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*It has just been brought to my attention that the lyrics for "Dust" were actually written by Jessica Russell. I'm going to leave it here though. I almost like that it was a collaborative project even more than when I thought that it wasn't. <br />
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Dust - The Sorrys</div>
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The greatest lie that you ever told was in your laughing out loud.</div>
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The greatest sins that you did commit were always against yourself.</div>
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And in the end we all turn to dust.</div>
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Why don't you tell me, what was your rush?</div>
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The greatest pain was in your smile. I knew it was a lie.</div>
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But I always loved your smile, yes I always loved your smile.</div>
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And in the end we all turn to dust.</div>
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Why don't you tell me, what was your rush?</div>
Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-49571860219624084562010-11-11T15:15:00.003-04:002010-11-11T18:23:34.467-04:00I Love You All The TimeI got my first laptop in 2006, a wonderful Christmas/birthday present from my mother and my step-father. It was meant to be - and it was - a useful educational tool. I could bring my homework to the bar, afterall! That made me immediately more productive, for a bit, before things got too hazy.<br /><br />It wasn't just my first laptop though, it was also the first computer I had that wasn't ancient, and slow, and reliant on a telephone line for access to the internet. I was a pretty late arrival to the internet party, but I jumped on board with a fair amount of gusto.<br /><br />At the time, I was playing in a folk duo called nate and marcel, and of course we recognised that having some kind of precense on the internet was becoming a practical necessity. Myspace was very big at the time, not only as a site for hosting music, but for networking as well. It was a way to get information about shows and releases out to a larger audience, and was especially helpful for planning tours or out-of-town shows. In my initial attempt to create a myspace for our duo, I accidentally ended up with a personal, non-artist profile instead of the one that I'd been trying to make. But I held onto it, and it ended up being utilised far more than my professional one. I'll get back to that. That's what this entry is about.<br /><br />And there was also halifaxlocals. The atlantic provinces seem unique, with their collection of related "music and skate talk" messageboards. I have sought out similar forums for other communities when planning tours, but I haven't found anything that compares to halifaxlocals.<br /><br />When I first began posting on halifaxlocals it was to promote our shows, but it wasn't long after I acquired my laptop that I began reading and eventually contributing to other discussions. Halifaxlocals exists primarily as a tool for promoting local musicians and local performances, but that is certainly not all it's about. Everything gets discussed there, from local politics to favourite diners to cell phone providers. It's a helpful resourse, and most of the regular posters are exceptionally articulate, well-informed, clever, and funny, while also being very considerate. Above all, it is a community. It's a weird mixture of real-life and online community, given its regional focus. Most people seem to choose not to remain anonymous, and there's a lot of back and forth between people who are actually friends. These people actually do see one another in real-life. I have never met many of the posters on halifaxlocals, but I <em>have</em> met many of them, too, and there are a couple who are among my closest friends. These friends, we don't know each other <em>because of</em> halifaxlocals, we have just all found ourselves there because of our common interests. The messageboard seems to somehow both facilitate and maintain community, here in Halifax. It is almost always where I first hear about things I want to hear about.<br /><br />There is another online community I feel a part of, too, and it is very different from halifaxlocals. It's sloppier, harsher, and much more abstract. And it isn't very useful, especially these days, or even as encouraging of intelligent discussion, but I really like a lot of the few remaining people who spend time there, and somehow, so strangely and slowly and inappropriately, that community has become a large part of my life. I am talking about the Myspace General Music Forum.<br /><br />I guess I fell into it shortly after creating my band and my personal profiles. Aware, thanks to halifaxlocals, of the possibilty and functionality of online communities, I explored the forums on myspace, and I can't remember what it was, exactly, that pulled me in, but I'm pretty sure it was Beej, and The Chucky Danger Band.<br /><br />There are few things I enjoy more than geeking out about music, and working in a record store, as I did at the time, I felt fairly knowledgeable about current music, especially Canadian music. Beej was a poster from just outside of Toronto who championed many of the bands I adored, and he was also a total jerk about them. He was a bully. He was unwaveringly devoted to his personal aesthetics and played a very loud and often cruel antagonist to anyone with differing ideas about good music. I think I sort of liked that. At least I found it somewhat refreshing in contrast to the incredibly inclusive atmosphere on halifaxlocals, where nobody is ever critical of local artists, with the notable exception of Bill Kidney.<br /><br />The Chucky Danger Band had just taken home some awards during the East Coast Music Awards, and I resented this. I thought they were a terrible, completely uninspired band, and that there were so many other Atlantic Canadian artists much more deserving of recognition. The Chucky Danger Band decided to spam the General Music forum, and I sort of laid into them. It's not really like me. But Beej thought it was great. And there was and remains something in me - and I think this is pretty shameful - that really, desperately, just wants to be liked, by those intimidating figures with the confidence to let you know when they don't. It's like winning a prize. And I'll tell you, it hurt, when it seemed like he didn't anymore.<br /><br />But that was just my in. There were a lot of neat people who posted in the general forum, of all ages and from everywhere around the world. Elias and Paul and Matthew and Amalia were all still in high school I think. I had a soft spot for Elias, who was occasionally sentimental and revealing in the midst of his posts about dark and harsh music. He seemed really innocent, and really vulnerable, and I remember occasions where reading the way he expressed himself would bring me right back to the way I felt when I was in high school. Disco and Bedbeats were the NICEST, most inclusive and mature people ever, without being too saccharine; still able to be clever and funny at nobody's expense. Except perhaps at the expense of the Acoustic forum. That night that Bedbeats, Johnny Rubber Maids, myself and surely some others tore into their "What's your favourite chord?" thread was one of my favourite times on the internet ever. Steve Zissou was incredibly cool, in sensibility and taste and expression. Philip and norm were older than everyone else, and they seemed older too; less concerned with hipness. There were some serious snobs in there, for sure, but almost everyone seemed very genuine.<br /><br />I found out about a lot of new music through that forum. It was great. It seemed that the biggest band then, the most universally appreciated, was a band called Oh No! Oh My! And I liked them so much that I got in touch with the band and arranged to sell their cds on consignment at Sam the Record Man. I played them for my real life friends and we managed to sell out of the five cds they had sent within a week.<br /><br />Then I left the forum for a long time. Several years. I guess I got more involved in real life. I was drinking a lot, and I had a very active social life that revolved around my favourite bar. It was probably some perceived sleight, though, or something that made me feel unliked, that mostly did it. I really can't remember, but I know how sensitive I am.<br /><br />I have been an active participant in this community for several (nine?) months now, much longer even than the first time I stuck around. My participation in halifaxlocals had slowed down a great deal, but it has always been a constant. It's a different beast. It feels like myspace is dying. I mean, anyone could tell you that, but to look at it from the inside, it's a different thing, and I wanted to write about it, while it's fresh, and still something that I engage with.<br /><br />The Myspace General Music Forum has a history. You still hear talk about what it was like back before the forum split. By this they mean that there used to be one music forum that was just called "General" until one day after logging in they discovered that it had mutated into a number of different subforums that divided genres and people who preferred metal to, say, electronic music. It feels like a mythology, and it always makes me think of that Sonic Youth show at NSCAD, back in the 80's, that comes up on halifaxlocals every so often. Where they played to something like ten people. Nobody was there, but everybody wants to claim it. Of course halifaxlocals has its own history too, its "guest book," sloan.net.<br /><br />Then facebook came along and social networking moved over there. Then myspace stopped allowing links to outside sites for fear of copyright infringements, so general forum users were unable to share the music they loved. Which was the point. Threads and threads, every day, about brand new music, top ten lists, it used to be a music nerd's paradise.<br /><br />Now it's like a wasteland; so slow, and much less empassioned.<br /><br />On the internet, as in life, I am a creature of habit. I like familiarity. I like comfort. I like substance and understatement and honesty and beautiful, affecting, genuine things and people and spaces. I also like being liked. And I have thought many times about writing something about myspace, using oh no! oh my! But now, maybe, it feels like it's close to being time to go, again. Some comment by a poster I really like but never quite know how to take upset me a bit yesterday, and I had to ask myself why, and what I feel like I've invested in this and what I feel my returns are. I feel coolness and reception and I react to kindness and insularity and dismissiveness like in real life. Posters are people even when they're just represented by some words they've typed and words of course aren't the always-all-the-time-truth. It's harder to recognise sarcasm or teasing without gestures and facial expressions. And I err myself on both sides; I find myself overly apologetic or agreeable or else off-handed. And what I really want, everywhere, is a genuine connection, but what I end up striving for is just being liked, even by bullies I don't even like myself.<br /><br />I have some forum "friends" on facebook now, which is neat. And I'm sending some Christmas cds out to some of them, which is also neat. I like that connections in an online forum can extend into the world at large, because connections, however and wherever you may find them are what it's all about. That and the music. But mostly I feel my time slipping away from me. I would rather be out there than in here if I am not being affected or active.<br /><br />I thought I'd be much more specific about people and my involvement this time around, but it feels too weird and perhaps rude to be too analytical about other people when it's present. The new format is glitchy they say, I'll see, and so they're making virtual suicide pacts, trying to get banned, and just<br />falling<br />away.<br /><br />I didn't think this entry would trun out to be so depressing.<br /><br />*Beej wrote a song about the myspace general music forum several years ago.<br />*Doug Mason has a great song about halifaxlocals called "locals culture."<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">I Love You All The Time - Oh No Oh My </div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center">**I have decided not to type out the lyrics this time because I think they're kind of silly, and not relevant, but it's a really great song! Much loved by the Myspace General Music forum circa 2006</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-31920904317752550502010-09-25T18:10:00.002-03:002010-09-25T18:20:46.781-03:00Gorgeous Morning<div align="justify">I feel a little weird writing about Tanya Davis, though this blog entry is something that has been rolling around in my brain for years now, in bits and pieces. I feel weird because I know her – not at all well, only very peripherally – and I find her writing so emotionally and personally affecting that I actually feel sort of strange and bare when I run into her in Halifax. I don’t know of another songwriter who is so vulnerable in her writing, and I don’t know of another songwriter who speaks to me in quite the same way. </div><div align="justify"><br />I was introduced to Tanya Davis’ music when I worked at Sam the Record Man. She brought in a copy of the recently released cd, “Make a List,” to be sold on consignment there. My friend and co-worker Jonathan suggested I listen to it; he thought I’d like her. “She calls these song-poems,” he said, rolling his eyes, and then he quickly added, “But it’s really good!” </div><div align="justify"><br />And I couldn’t get enough. On days when I was confined to the third floor I would sit there and replay that cd for hours. I’d never heard anyone speak about loneliness that way. There was hope, too, and constant lists, so many lists, of reasons to do what you do, things you should be doing, ways that people can be known, ways in which they aren’t enough, all of the dark and light little corners of human experience seemed to there, spoken and sung in this fragile, honest little voice. It was truly revolutionary for me. It used to make me think about the excitement with which Jon Landau had famously declared, “I saw rock and roll’s future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.” There was that same experience for me and I remembered why I loved music so much, why I felt such a connection to certain artists and songs. Sure, there’s nothing new about what Tanya Davis has to say. What’s new is that she says it with such earnestness, with such a lack of pretension or self-censorship that it feels so remarkably different from anything that anyone else is saying. </div><div align="justify"><br />Tanya Davis has been getting a lot of attention lately, and this makes me very happy. The Andrea Dorfman-directed video for her poem, “How to be Alone” has been everywhere on the internet, and viewed/heard and enjoyed by bigshots like Roger freakin’ Ebert, even! This is not a sad poem and it is not about being lonely, despite what some critics have seen in it. But a lot of what she writes is about about being lonely, and about being sad, and I believe she does an excellent service for humankind by articulating these experiences so unself-consciously. </div><div align="justify"><br />It is hard to pick, but I picked gorgeous morning, for “It wasn’t worth those happy breakfasts that I missed.” Truth.<br /><br /><br /><br />Gorgeous Morning - Tanya Davis<br /><br />some of the people thought that I was crazy<br />for leaving all that<br />but they didn't see me at seven in the morning<br />in the months before i left<br /><br />within a few minutes of opening my eyes<br />there was the dread of the day<br />sitting by my bed waiting for me to rise<br />and pretend like everything was okay<br /><br />and it makes for bad digestion when you are crying onto your toast<br />and if that's how breakfast goes you know you're in for it<br />but i had no intentions then, go to work and come back home<br />my feet heavy and slow every minute of it<br /><br />i could be a person climbing up the ladder<br />and checking the right boxes<br />moving through the brackets higher and higher<br />with more gains than losses<br /><br />and i could have a cottage in a pretty spot<br />and make it there twice a year<br />all the other months in the city with my job<br />and my money and my tears<br /><br />the glory of the morning did fade and dim<br />where once it was my best love and i was so grateful for it<br />but those days working with no passion did change all of this<br />and it wasn't worth the happy breakfasts that i missed<br /><br />so on one gorgeous morning i told them i was leaving<br />and it was so relieving to say it out<br />and i worked hard all afternoon and the weeks before the leaving<br />until finally one evening was my last walk out </div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-44433121045127995302010-01-21T19:41:00.003-04:002010-01-21T21:07:45.922-04:00Claire"Who the hell are the Howl Brothers?" I stared at the round piece of vinyl, knowing there was some kind of joke I wasn't in on. It was one of the first Rheostatics shows I ever went to, maybe my third or fourth, and as we made our way into the Bathurst Street Theatre we were all handed a recording of the Howl Brothers' song "Torque Torque." I don't remember how I learned the identity of the Howl Brothers - whether it was during the band's performance or shortly thereafter - but I soon learned that they were a fictional band created by the author of the novel <span style="font-style: italic;">Whale Music, </span>and that The Howl Brothers actually were Rheostatics, and that this song was to be included in the upcoming film, <span style="font-style: italic;">Whale Music</span>.<br /><br />I did know about the book in a vague way. I knew that its author was a Canadian by the name of Paul Quarrington, and that the novel had been the inspiration for the Rheostatics album of the same name. I was very familiar with the album. It was, and remains, a favourite, and even by then I had listened to it so many times that I had committed each lyric to memory, sat in anticipation of the beginning of each consecutive song, was all set to switch to side "b" at exactly the right moment.<br /><br />I went to that Bathurst Street Theatre show with a friend of mine from SEE School, a friend who was a million times cooler than I was. The drummer for Barenaked Ladies, Tyler Stewart, was sitting a few rows away from us, and I wanted to say something to him, to acknowledge his significance, here, because it was Tyler Stewart who brought me to Rheostatics.<br /><br />I was a big Barenaked Ladies fan for a short little while. In grade eleven, when Derek worked at the Rogers Video at Dundas and Royal York, Adam and Jill and Maryan and Nicole and myself and/or whomever else was available would visit him there on slow nights, and we'd bop around the video store to that infamous yellow cassette. Everyone had a copy of that Barenaked Ladies tape. It was everywhere, along with the baseball caps. I wore my bright red barenaked cap with frequency and pride. They were also on tv a lot, and I swear, every single time I saw Barenaked Ladies on television, I saw Tyler Stewart wearing a <span style="font-style: italic;">Melville</span> t-shirt. After a little investigation I learned this was the name of a Rheostatics album. And it's because of Tyler Stewart that I found myself at Sam's on Yonge street purchasing a copy of their brand new album, <span style="font-style: italic;">Whale Music</span>. I had no idea what Rheostatics sounded like.<br /><br />The rest is history. It's amazing, all of the things I could and will and have said about this band and their significance to me. It's frankly astonishing that this is the first blog entry I've devoted to them. Although I have written a song, an academic paper, and a facebook "note" that reads like a blog entry, back before I started this thing.<br /><br />I did speak to Tyler Stewart that night, and I said "Thank you for introducing me to Rheostatics." That probably wasn't very cool, I certainly should have said something about his own band, even though I was totally over them by then. It would have been polite. He was nevertheless very kind to me, and told me I was welcome. I think he seemed really glad to have introduced a new fan.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Several years ago Rheostatics played a show at Reflections. It was very poorly attended, but I was there, of course, and with me was my friend Claire, who had never heard the band before.<br /><br />Claire played cello with me. We used to be a folk duo called nate and marcel, and this Rheostatics show took place not long after Claire and I returned from a brief and whimsical tour we had gone on in southern Ontario. What was initially just a trip home I was to have taken with my father and his partner (now wife!) Susan, became a hastily-planned tour, with Claire and her enormous stringed instrument joining our party of three.<br /><br />One of the funnest things about that trip was listening to music in the car. I had made many mixed tapes in anticipation, and collected all of my old, tried and true favourite mixes as well. The car stereo didn't work, but we brought along a tiny battery-operated cassette player that we managed to position atop of the cello in a way that ensured that it only ever fell over when we had to exit the highway.<br /><br />Claire didn't know a thing about popular music. I was astonished when she had to ask me who was singing "Like a Rolling Stone." Though I suppose it all evened out when she laughed at my mispronunciation of Haydn. But she was the <span style="font-style: italic;">best </span>to play new songs for! She really listened, and she loved hearing all of these new musicians. I got to play her all of my favourites.<br /><br />Claire brought that same enthusiasm with her to that Rheostatics show. I don't know if she ever followed up with them, ever purchased any of their albums and listened to them at home, but she sure had a great time at that concert. Being an "Amelia," perhaps it is especially exciting to hear my name referenced, but I know it was also pretty cool for "Claire." I <span style="font-style: italic;">wish </span>I had as cool a song with my name. It was so much fun showing this band to her, because a Rheostatics show is like driving through my old neighbourhood, for me. And where I live, with all of these great people I'd sometimes like to explain myself better to, we are so far away from my childhood homes. It sounds silly to say it, I guess, but there are things about my relationship with this band that are defining.<br /><br />I read <span style="font-style: italic;">Whale Music</span>. I read it in a basement apartment on Woodbine avenue in the year 2000. I liked it a lot. I thought it was well-written and funny, and I devoured it pretty quickly. It certainly didn't affect me in a significant way, though, not the book itself. But it goes like this: Paul Quarrington wrote a book about a fictional band called the Howl Brothers, loosely based on The Beach Boys. Rheostatics, inspired by this novel, named an album after it. When the movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Whale Music</span> came out, Rheostatics were asked to do the soundtrack. Among other compositions was the song "Claire." The lyrics had already been partly written by Paul Quarrington. I took my friend Claire to see them play and she thought it was so cool that such a great band had a song called "Claire."<br /><br />Paul Quarrington passed away this morning, and I am especially sorry for all of the people whose lives were directly touched by him, but I am also sorry for all of the people who didn't even know he was here. He really, really made a difference. Rest in Peace.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br />Claire - Rheostatics and Paul Quarrington<br /><br />Purify me.<br />Purify me Claire.<br />Let me see you save a mind that isn't there.<br />Purify me.<br />Clarify me, Claire.<br /><br />Liquify me.<br />Liquify these walls.<br />Let me see them gushin like Niagara Falls.<br />Liquify me.<br />Vapourize me, Claire.<br /><br />Purify me.<br />Purify me Claire.<br />Let me see you save a soul that is impaired.<br />Purify me.<br />Clarify me, Claire.<br /><br />Claire confide in me. <!--ringtones and media links --> <br /></div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-59854437016373857882009-12-04T21:22:00.000-04:002009-12-05T14:30:01.256-04:00Happy Christmas (War Is Over)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJENNBHi-wJRoSr1KPgBo78pPjc0_X7lDEA_QpL0bEbwz-oi4O4rSLEUPIDBsC8blze2PYeDDGrtQQIkOejakt4AMshbf6fFJ8xPDPXsOaygGR3hYClPOYr4qzOZnB4F49Ze8Jkq5ch0/s1600-h/warisover.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 256px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOJENNBHi-wJRoSr1KPgBo78pPjc0_X7lDEA_QpL0bEbwz-oi4O4rSLEUPIDBsC8blze2PYeDDGrtQQIkOejakt4AMshbf6fFJ8xPDPXsOaygGR3hYClPOYr4qzOZnB4F49Ze8Jkq5ch0/s320/warisover.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5411821097090843170" border="0" /></a><br />I just learned that <span style="font-style: italic;">Shaved Fish</span> was released a month before I was born. So I guess it's no wonder that John Lennon's "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" feels like it's been with me all my life.<br /><br />There was a time before it felt like Christmas music was an enormous part of my life; before I could spend hours debating the best version of "Jingle Bells." (I still don't have a definitive answer to this, although Crash Test Dummies and Barenaked Ladies are both surprisingly good contenders.) But there was never a time that Christmas music was not a part of my life. It just used to be less like a favourite t-shirt and more like a dependably warm but unremarkable afghan.<br /><br />There are a few exceptional songs, though, that stood out, for whatever reason, and that don't have to do with my life After Christmas Music but that resonate with me so much because of my exposure to them as a kid, surrounded by my family. 'Cause family is ultimately what Christmas is about.<br /><br />I used to play this song every year, pulling out the cassette and placing it in the big black dual cassette player/record player/radio that was our stereo for as long as I can remember. Every Christmas morning, it was <span style="font-style: italic;">the </span>song that I wanted to hear. I know I used to do this, because I remember remembering this. But when I think about this song, I'm not transported back to my home on Edgevalley drive, where I spent 11 Christmases, but to the house on Stoneham, where I only spent one.<br /><br />Mom said to me once, "I was so proud of that house." She was talking about the way that things go, and about how sometimes you can be prepared to embrace what you get because you get what you need, and that's all that you were asking for anyway, and then be so ecstatically, wonderfully surprised by the fantastically rich, double chocolate cream cheese icing on the cake. She told me she didn't think she'd ever meet anyone, that it wasn't in her plan. She just wanted to be able to afford a modest home for herself and her kids and to have her independence. And she got it. The icing is a whole other story. A really great one.<br /><br />My parents separated during the summer after my second year of university, that first time around, that time I dropped out, not really knowing why I was there in the first place except that it - university - seemed to be the thing to do. Their separation was hard on my dad. Really, really hard. It was hard on all of us in different ways, but for Mom it was also incredibly freeing.<br /><br />I loved my Dad a lot, but he sure did stress me out. He was angry, incredibly self-involved, unpredictable. I suffered from the worst tension headaches as a teenager, and I'm convinced their virtual abandonment was not so incidentally related to my father's absence. [Let me say here, for the record: My Dad's changed a whole lot. And my Dad is a million times happier now than he was then. And although he had a rough go of it for a number of years I doubt that he regrets much of it because of how he can appreciate what he has now, largely because of it.]<br /><br />The year I lived on Stoneham I worked at Chapters. It was great. Sometimes I think it was the best year of my life. I've never read so many books. I was surrounded by family, and friends from high school, and new friends I made at the bookstore. I felt like I belonged there, with my new bookstore friends; I've never felt so secure within an extended social group. Nearly every night we'd gather at Hemingway's, the bar across the street, after work to talk about ourselves and books and where we were going. I felt well-liked, and confident, for the most part. I had all this disposable income. And I felt hopeful. I don't know why, with all of that awesome stuff around me, I got it into my head that I should be somewhere else, but maybe it is exactly for that reason: It is very difficult to make a major life change when you don't feel supported or good about yourself. I decided to move to Halifax, a city I'd never even seen.<br /><br />My favourite thing about that year, though, was getting to spend it with my mom. I got to see her happy and herself. It was like an enormous weight had been lifted off of her shoulders, and she knew that she was going to be okay. We had a lot of fun, spending time together as adults; having coffee together in the morning, watching and laughing about "Days of Our Lives" on occasional, lucky free afternoons. And we really talked. She helped my fragile, twenty-year-old heart when it got bruised. She picked my up from Katherine's house all the way in Rexdale! And she always kept the porch light on for me.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Shaved Fish</span> is my Dad's cassette, but it got left behind, like lots of his stuff. My mom probably still has it in the same drawer in that enourmous black cassette holder that's always been there, except somewhere else.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">On Christmas, on Stoneham, I remember running downstairs in the morning, fast-forwarding side b to the very last song and hitting "play." I felt like a kid and I still feel like a kid to hear it. It is mine and dad's and mom's and home no matter, wherever, I go. And that year, it felt especially joyful. Happy Christmas. War is Over.<br /><br /></div><br />Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon<br /><br />So this is Christmas<br />And what have you done<br />Another year over<br />A new one just begun<br />And so this is Christmas<br />I hope you have fun<br />The near and the dear ones<br />The old and the young<br /><br />A very merry Christmas<br />And a happy New Year<br />Let's hope it's a good one<br />Without any fear<br /><br />And so this is Christmas<br />(War is Over, if you want it, war is over now)<br />For weak and for strong<br />The rich and the poor ones<br />The road is so long<br />So happy Christmas<br />For black and for white<br />For yellow and red ones<br />Let's stop all the fight<br /><br />A very merry Christmas<br />And a happy New Year<br />Let's hope it's a good one<br />Without any fear<br /><br />And so this is Christmas<br />(War is over, if you want it, war is over now)<br />And what have we done<br />Another year over<br />And a new one just begun<br />And so this is Christmas<br />And we hope you have fun<br />The near and the dear ones<br />The old and the young<br /><br />A very merry Christmas<br />And a happy New Year<br />Let's hope it's a good one<br />Without any fear<br />War is over, if you want it<br />War is over now<br /><br />Merry Christmas</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-82085976962432273492009-10-17T15:37:00.000-03:002012-06-30T13:53:35.987-03:00Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIJ9qxKDqbBmoxW2Q9kGwzWCyFplZguIfKwxOTXGyq7t7s_K0IVon3FNDWVoOtI-YX0xq1s8kzbyoX5VgRDN-06cmcltdKKkoGva8IwZyL2jASPXOwDIMDc9dfCLrgnNXhdbBqCszMm4M/s1600-h/DSCF0968.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393657802977628450" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIJ9qxKDqbBmoxW2Q9kGwzWCyFplZguIfKwxOTXGyq7t7s_K0IVon3FNDWVoOtI-YX0xq1s8kzbyoX5VgRDN-06cmcltdKKkoGva8IwZyL2jASPXOwDIMDc9dfCLrgnNXhdbBqCszMm4M/s320/DSCF0968.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP3m_Dk4WQTq8_E46Bs78ymjLXI_9AamoXiUs4cx34qEmTgI1y7BEVRZds-aqdk8bu9HuC03jjCbuks4wQFLtpiYqQEVUTcA8RydNwhGBA_I1935wYx6Sady_4pPORkKfp3gqGdmnicOM/s1600-h/DSCF0973.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393657428251953346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP3m_Dk4WQTq8_E46Bs78ymjLXI_9AamoXiUs4cx34qEmTgI1y7BEVRZds-aqdk8bu9HuC03jjCbuks4wQFLtpiYqQEVUTcA8RydNwhGBA_I1935wYx6Sady_4pPORkKfp3gqGdmnicOM/s320/DSCF0973.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
Several years ago I came to the sad conclusion that I probably wasn't really a writer. I mean, it's something I'll always do. I'll always write little songs and stories, but I don't actually have what it really, really takes. Confidence, nerve, and above all: Commitment. I won't quit my day job, and there aren't enough hours to do it any other way. I won't be miserable. I mean, I still work in a bookstore; not a government office. And I <span style="font-style: italic;">would be</span> miserable and not quite myself if I wasn't compelled to embrace the bursts of inspiration that arrive happily and unbidden. Nothing is more satisfying than saying it how I mean to.<br />
<br />
But there are brave souls in this world who have the confidence, nerve and commitment that I lack. And I would be far worse off if I didn't have them to read and to listen to. I can't even imagine the person I would be.<br />
<br />
I have a lot of friends who make music in Halifax, and most of them do this in their spare time. Like a hobby, I guess I mean. Songwriting seems of a different order than most "hobbies" but maybe I only think this because I don't feel compelled to play hockey or knit sweaters the way I feel compelled to write songs. Maybe it's actually all the same. For those of us who don't abandon our day jobs.<br />
<br />
But there are those few people who make it their livelihoods, and I can't give them enough respect for that. Like the two fantastic people who rolled into town last night to play a show at the Seahorse Tavern Not nearly enough people were there. Or, at least, there to see <span style="font-style: italic;">them</span>.<br />
<br />
The first time I saw Paul MacLeod and Lucas Stagg perform, I was working the door at Ginger's Tavern. I knew nothing about them, but judging a show by its poster, I already suspected it would be good.<br />
<br />
Ginger's did not have a regular or walk-in crowd, and being one of many venues in a city that supports so many locally revered band and their fan bases, crowds were always hard to come by for a couple of unknowns from Ontario. But Paul MacLeod shouldn't have been an unknown. His impressive resume includes collaborations with members of Rheostatics, an album produced by Hawksley Workman, and a long stint as a member of The Skydiggers. It still amazes me that I had no idea who he was.<br />
<br />
I liked them both so much before they even picked up their guitars. Both Lucas and Paul are genuine, interesting, entertaining people and conversationalists, who always maintain their positive outlooks and their curiosity about new people and places. I went downstairs and tried to convince friends and regulars to shell out the measly five dollar cover charge, eventually finding only two recruits. But being the professionals that they are, they nevertheless played their hearts out to the three paying members of their audience, and to myself at the door and Myndi at the bar. It could have been - should have been? - a disheartening experience for them, but they were obviously having a blast. Their tiny audience sure was appreciative.<br />
<br />
I came really close to drinking that night. It was one of the two most tempting evenings I spent around alcohol since I quit, and I can remember so clearly my inner struggle. Because it was about - as was the other occasion - the best things about drinking. The way that it can - in early stages at least - foster community and comaraderie, make conversation easier, looser, the way beer can be both relaxing and celebratory. And it was about music and bars and I don't know that that romantising I do will ever quit. But I had a great time anyway, and without the regret that would surely have followed.<br />
<br />
They came back a few months later and played three shows in town. I went out to their shows at Gus' and the Seahorse alone, but I convinced a few of my friends to come out to the matinee at the Carleton. Because, I suspect, that show was the free one. And I can't really begrudge people for that. It's hard to get excited about performers you've never heard before. So it's a leap of faith to see someone new, and despite recommendations, money is always an issue, and besides, there are always other, safer, shows going on.<br />
<br />
But I kind of worried they'd never come back. A selfish worry, because I like hearing them play so much, and I like hanging out with them, too.<br />
<br />
A few days ago their car broke down a couple of hours outside of Montreal, leaving them stranded, with expensive repairs to take care of, and forcing them to miss a couple of their shows. My anxious self would not have done well in this situation. I don't pretend to know Lucas or Paul particularly well, and surely they have moments or days where they consider packing it in for a greater level of security or stability. But it seems to me that more often than not, they consider themselves very fortunate to be able to do what it is they love to do. I would think it would be hard, to come out this way every few months, across such long expanses of highway and trees and sparsely populated communities, to play for only marginally larger audiences each time. But I guess that is how it's done. And I guess it is infinitely better than most things that people do to get by.<br />
<br />
I should have probably used a song by Paul MacLeod or Lucas Stagg for this entry, but Todd Snider - he says it all right here, way better than I just did.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern - Todd Snider<br />
<br />
Old Miss Virgy tended bar at this shack out in the hills<br />
It never made her any money, boys, but paid off all of her bills<br />
Now she must have been 80 years old but her heart was warm<br />
And her beer was cold<br />
She gave away more than she ever sold<br />
Smiling all the time<br />
<br />
I used to sing off in the corner every Friday night<br />
To a loud crowd of cowboys, bikers and bar room fights<br />
They were drinking beer, carrying on, not a one of them listening to one of my songs<br />
But old Miss Virgy sang along<br />
She said she knew 'em all by heart<br />
<br />
And then one night after closing she poured me another beer<br />
She said "Come on over and sit down you little shit<br />
I got something you need to hear"<br />
She said "Life ain't easy getting through, everybody's gonna make things tough on you<br />
But I can tell you right now if you dig what you do, they will never get you down"<br />
<br />
She said life's too short to worry<br />
Life's too long to wait<br />
Too short not to love everybody<br />
Life's too long to hate<br />
I meet a lot of men who haggle and finagle all the time<br />
Trying to save a nickel or make a dime<br />
Not me, no sireee, I ain't got the time<br />
<br />
Now I ain't seen Ol' Virgy in must have been about ten years<br />
I've been bumming around this country singing my songs for tips and beers<br />
Now the nights are long<br />
The driving's tough<br />
Hotels stink, and the pay sucks<br />
But I can't dig what I do enough, so it never gets be down<br />
<br />
I say life's too short to worry<br />
Life's too long to wait<br />
Too short not to love everybody<br />
Life's too long to hate<br />
I meet a lot of men who haggle and finagle all the time<br />
Trying to save a nickel or make a dime<br />
Not me, no sireee, I ain't got the time</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-60748635270833836322009-08-25T18:29:00.000-03:002009-08-25T20:36:24.720-03:00Son of a Rudderless Boat<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXtwhNaRQW17LY8RlOEmep2bT3MdTIOY18uLOXEkXzozc8REIUBBKd6qjTtLpDcFAKyjLoPqmwNTkyDKAarV-kICEDcy35j5Gqz7zPGRIlMF_H9D4dENy9LIClEVpwwyqLPIvMohQs2Rs/s1600-h/DSCF2392.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXtwhNaRQW17LY8RlOEmep2bT3MdTIOY18uLOXEkXzozc8REIUBBKd6qjTtLpDcFAKyjLoPqmwNTkyDKAarV-kICEDcy35j5Gqz7zPGRIlMF_H9D4dENy9LIClEVpwwyqLPIvMohQs2Rs/s320/DSCF2392.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374049222615583026" border="0" /></a><br />I just got back from Ontario. I always leave that province with a little bit more inspiration, a heart that's a little fuller, and some more direction than I had when I arrived. After the sun came down somewhere in eastern Quebec, I tried to help keep the drivers - my father, his wife Susan - awake and motivated by talking and asking questions. We talked a lot, Dad and I, about leaving there to live here. We bitched about the cold, materialist certainty of grey, brick-buildinged Toronto, but we also talked about the smaller places in Ontario and in Toronto itself. Home in all of its personal enormity, as well as possibility in the immediate familiarity of towns and cities and neighbourhoods we could live, if we had to, for some crazy reason, leave this coast. The people we miss because they make us miss them so, because they love us and we love them so.<br /><br />My dad parroted the old cliche, "Blood is thicker than water." But you know, you get older, it's true.<br /><br />Watching people get old from afar is weird. Missing the years in between exploring the woods, climbing rock piles on sturdy legs, taking the boat out on the bay, and the slow and cautious, <span style="font-style: italic;">precious </span>steps in smaller rooms than ever imagined.<br /><br />I am so lucky to have had a relationship with all four of my grandparents. Certainly luckier than most. Even my grandmother - my active, playful grandmother - who died of cancer far too young, at 61, when I was 12 or 13, is someone of whom I have countless fond, funny, sweet memories. And maybe it is only because her absence allows me to romanticise our relationship, but that was probably around the time I stopped feeling particularly close with any of my parents' parents. I suspect it's more likely, though, that being a teenager had as much to do with that. And then moving three provinces away when I was in my early twenties.<br /><br />Sean and I used to do this thing, when we were together, when one of us got back from a trip somewhere, where the returning person would be asked to state his or her favourite moment. And I know I should, you would think I would, say: Ted and Hayley's wedding, of course. Ted and Hayley's wedding was beautiful, perfect, a darn good time in every way imaginable. But I've got to give the Favourite Moment Award to the only time I cried during my trip to Ontario.<br /><br />I have and always have had a different relationship with my mother's parents than I do with my father's parents. Neither relationship is more or less significant, just different, because of who they are and who I am.<br /><br />For a lot of years I don't think I felt at all close to Granddad, my father's father. Neither he nor my father are the best at keeping in touch, and I saw far less of him after his wife passed away. And besides, Grandma and Grandpa - my mother's parents - had the cottage. We'd spend week-ends and even weeks at a time there, with them, every summer. But I really don't think it's just circumstance and proximity. It's my Granddad, too, and I think I have finally pinpointed it. Granddad talks to everyone, young and old, without reserve, without censorship, with criticism and intelligence and honesty. And in turn, I feel that I can speak to him that way. That I would not have to be polite if it were at the expense of being genuine.<br /><br />My mom's parents, on the other hand, are people I sure as shit wouldn't swear or smoke around. Which is not to say they're especially proper or anything. But when Granddad, a few days ago, requested that I play that song with the line about masturbating, I happily obliged, before imagining Grandma and Grandpa's horror-stricken expressions should I perform the same song for them. Never in a million years.<br /><br />Grandpa took me fishing on Georgian Bay, taught be how to bait a hook years before I became a vegetarian and had the only fight I remember having with him, which is likely why it seems so particularly painful when I conjure the incident up in my head. Fighting with my grandfather about his going fishing, on the front deck that he built. Self-righteous tree-hugging teenager I was then.<br /><br />Grandma held me up the window at their condominium in Brantford to watch the trains go by, read me books, sang me songs. She was always singing. Her voice has this integral, soothing, sing-song quality even, so that when I imagine her voice it always sounds like a tune, and which my mother has undoubtedly inherited. These two Sellar women, they have always made me feel safe.<br /><br />No one knows what people will take from them. They just put themselves out there the best they know how. There are incidents I remember so vividly as speaking so clearly of their individual characters, and all the while they are and were carrying their own histories and relatives who began long, long before I did. It is probably in their sons and daughters that I know them best.<br /><br />In Burlington, Ontario, my mother and I had a brief visit with Grandma and Grandpa at the retirement building they now reside in, until they or someone else determines that they are no longer capable of residing there alone, without assistance. That time is coming soon. Grandpa moves slowly, Grandma can't remember to take her medication. They don't want to let go, and who can blame them? The visit was less personal than it might have been, because my mother and I brought along an old friend of theirs, who had moved his travel plans around so that he might spend the afternoon with Frank and Jean Sellar before leaving for China. Gerry, this friend, lives in England, and hadn't seen them in twenty years. In the meantime, he had lost his mother (who lived to be 97!), his wife, and, tragically, his youngest son. At 70, Gerry is a good fifteen years younger than my grandparents, but must nevertheless be feeling his age in ways that he didn't a decade ago.<br /><br />"China!" Grandpa exclaimed. "Aren't you tired?"<br /><br />"Frank," he said, "Of course I'm tired. But I want to keep going, for as long as I can. Because I know all too well that one day I'll have to stop."<br /><br />Granddad was in the hospital for two months earlier this year. He was fainting all the time, and no one could figure out how to stop this from happening, and no one wanted him to leave the doctor's constant care. Except for Granddad, who figured that if he was going to die, he would much prefer dying in the comfort of his own home, being able to see Dog Lake from his bedroom window. He and his wife Anna live at the end of a series of unpaved roads, a half hour drive from Kingston, Ontario. Granddad is lucky to be able to afford this financially, and to have a healthy, willing, and able wife to assist him.<br /><br />He is still fainting all the time. It is such a terrifying struggle to help him down the stairs, even on the lifts that have been installed there, as I witnessed on Friday, when the four of us finally did help him downstairs and into the living room for the first time in two weeks.<br /><br />But he doesn't seem old at all.<br /><br />A few months ago, I wrote a song about my grandmother's death. More about my grandfather, really. Outside of the condominium they lived in in Mississauga was a small house that was always locked. Granddad and I would take walks around the grounds - the garden, the fish pond, until we would finally come to that house, and peer into the windows, imagining what it was used for, or who lived there. The first and only time I ever went inside was for the reception that followed my grandmother's funeral, and I sure wished it had remained a mystery.<br /><br />The song came up in conversation with Anna when she, Dad, Susan and I were sitting around the kitchen table on Friday morning. "You should tell your grandfather about it," she said. And I really, really wanted to, but I just didn't know how appropriate it would be. "It's sad," I said.<br /><br />And so, "It's sad," I said to Granddad, as I took out my guitar, upstairs in his room, just a few hours before I was to leave this province and these people that I am made of.<br /><br />But some things are sad. <span style="font-style: italic;">Lots</span> of things are sad. I couldn't get through the song without crying, but I couldn't stop either. Granddad was tearing up. And Anna, too. She was Grandma's best friend. And she is Granddad's wife. And no one, no matter how much they are loved, and needed here on this earth, gets to live forever that way.<br /><br />It was a moment. I'm so glad I could let my grandfather know how much I love him, and that I could see how much he loves me. And if I have to say good-bye, I'm glad I could say that too.<br /><br />And then he asked me to play the masturbating song.<br /><br />Dad and Susan and I outwitted a tornado in Ontario, beat a hurricane in Nova Scotia, driving all night. We told stories about ourselves. My father's voice is so much like his father's.<br /><br />We opened windows and played cds to stay awake when we ran out of questions, or one or two of us passengers began to fade.<br /><br />We listened to Kev Corbett's brand new album, "Son of a Rudderless Boat." We heard "The Driving Song," taking the same route, as though it was written for us. And we listened to "Son of a Rudderless Boat," and with new ears I felt light and lucky, and so happy that it was my father up there in front of me, driving me home, persevering, saving us from the storm. "Row hard, in this rudderless boat," I was thinking, as the sun began to rise somewhere in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">**I didn't format the lyrics like I usually do, not because I'm lazy, but because I asked Kev to send then to me so that I didn't have to listen over and over and over again and type them out myself (because I'm lazy), and he was happy to oblige, and I like they way they looked, in paragraph form, so I kept them that way.**</span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Son of a Rudderless Boat - Kev Corbett<br /></div><br />Grampa sailed a dory; he fished upon the sea. And though he knew what he was for, he didn’t know just what to be. He lost his arm at a logging camp. And up ‘til he died, he still chopped his own wood. He told me a story ‘bout going out with a new guy in the boat and when they got out on the water new guy just sat there and choked, so back inshore later on Gramp says, b’y, you can haul that fish yourself. We’re all scared out on that water, but next time you can swim, or you can help. He said, gotta work hard, gotta pray hard and just try to keep it strong and if you want to work with me man, gotta pull that weight along ’cause by the Father and by the Son and by the Holy Ghost, by the angels and the saints and by the heavenly host, by the fields of grass that bore me, and the sea that awaits I know I got no control, but I will fear no earthly fate. From the ocean we did come, and to her we shall return. She puts the fire out in us when our souls cease to burn and so to find true love and tend it is your only hope. Just give up the ghost, man. You’re a son of a rudderless boat.<br /><br />My father tried his hand out as a fisher of men It was at least one job for a papish boy from the steel plant back then but he jumped that ship, I guess, left his robes upon the ground and I, for one, am glad he did, musta seen this gig comin’ round. He’s a student of his time, a renaissance guy to be sure. He lets me hoist myself, but my ears ring with his words: Son, I pray that you grow to be a very gentle man with Respect for those ‘round you and respect for the land ‘cause life don’t owe you another 10 seconds, you already got today but I believe it comes around if you treat the World that way and everything you need to know you learn from watching others fall but you’ll rejoice in their successes if you really heed the call. You’ll choose the high or the low road when life has you by the throat. It’s a choice we all get to make. We’re all sons and daughters of a rudderless boat.<br /><br />I’m learning to love the Winter. Spring ain’t too far away.<br /><br />So my paddle hits the water and I’m off among the trees. And I’m just lucky to be here, living like this in times like these I feel the weight of the whole world in all the choices that I make under the gazes of our mothers, and environmental stakes. By my unborn children, by the lepers in the streets, by the world already drowning in pools around our feet, may we come to patch this leaky boat that we’re all here sinking in and stop making up some right to throw the weaker ones in. By the earth and air and fire and water lapping at the shores all our spirits are the same and all our hands are on the oars. May we come to fix this tired old world before we drown in smoke. I’ll do my part. Row hard, in this rudderless boat.Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-78743079219169388292009-07-16T23:47:00.000-03:002009-07-17T03:17:18.830-03:00Love This Town<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIEYZSalTlRDfDB2EnCwBXYkQYX91s5w0BEf1T2Qi0h9zqMD2x2-5mTEYkSrpxl10qOdlsPJKbWtc6HUc8KxhFstTZYjd1ICMYnXkUo_wcXAJC96Z2UcwaUgSEZIvMSbRoyCIBgux7gds/s1600-h/Summer!+Music%21+Canada+Day%21+093.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIEYZSalTlRDfDB2EnCwBXYkQYX91s5w0BEf1T2Qi0h9zqMD2x2-5mTEYkSrpxl10qOdlsPJKbWtc6HUc8KxhFstTZYjd1ICMYnXkUo_wcXAJC96Z2UcwaUgSEZIvMSbRoyCIBgux7gds/s320/Summer!+Music%21+Canada+Day%21+093.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359256822272644130" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv90ZBW9TYSVhyphenhyphenif4hFHsU0EdxSz4XnObLxRu7OoRihNl1VTgp_FFndkzbvpyT3SO4wqsB-Nc3bDaB85gSNUtWjEpzkiRkGyrroGFQcd_YDIRw17TYwCDqnOaCsOlgkmRUoeeE87RMjss/s1600-h/Summer!+Music%21+Canada+Day%21+127.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv90ZBW9TYSVhyphenhyphenif4hFHsU0EdxSz4XnObLxRu7OoRihNl1VTgp_FFndkzbvpyT3SO4wqsB-Nc3bDaB85gSNUtWjEpzkiRkGyrroGFQcd_YDIRw17TYwCDqnOaCsOlgkmRUoeeE87RMjss/s320/Summer!+Music%21+Canada+Day%21+127.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359256805507701426" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />Joel Plaskett is a pretty flawed songwriter. He's written lyrics that make me blush, cringe, and shake my head. He needs an editor. His friends should have told him about how lame it is to rhyme "extraordinary" with "ordinary," and not to have included this couplet in the chorus of one of his songs. One of his biggest hits, as it would turn out. It's not even a <span style="font-style: italic;">rhyme</span> when it's the same word! And <span style="font-style: italic;">come on</span>, Joel, you don't have to deconstruct the word "extraordinary" for us! Give your fans a little more credit!<br /><br />But then again, I kind of think this sloppiness is endearing. Cute. Genuine. And<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>I<span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>somehow let it go, with him. I don't think I'd let anyone else in the world get away with the stuff I let Joel Plaskett get away with. He's one of my favourites, and I think he's one of the best. In spite of.<br /><br />I tell a lot of people, when asked, that I moved to Halifax because of Sloan. Which is the short answer. Sloan and most of the other groups who made up the scene that had been touted as the "next Seattle," and which I'd romanticized in high school, had broken up or moved to bigger centres. Bands like Eric's Trip, Leonard Conan, and jale. But Joel Plaskett's band, Thrush Hermit - I got to be here for the end of them.<br /><br />The very first time I saw Thrush Hermit play was in Toronto, at an early Edgefest being held at Ontario Place. Their whole set consisted of Steve Miller Band covers. It was awfully unexpected and hilarious and fun. The next and only other time I saw them was for one of their last performances, at the earliest incarnation of the Marquee, about a year after I moved here.<br /><br />Joel, he keeps high school close and, well, I do too. I don't know what it's about. Not having kids? Not having grown-up responsibilities to keep my self-indulgence at bay? Or maybe I'm not that special, and it really is a universal thing he's tapping into. Maybe so many of us are so wistful about our pasts, our "glory days" as New Jersey's Plaskett might say it.<br /><br />Another thing I love is his consideration of place. It wasn't long after my friend Tim copied his <span style="font-style: italic;">Smeared</span> cd onto a cassette for me that Sloan were high tailing it out of here. It's not just in this one song that Plaskett asserts the importance of remaining in Halifax/Dartmouth despite the city's small size. ("All my friends, where did they go?"/"To Montreal, Toronto.")<br /><br />When Joel Plaskett played "Love This Town" last night, he changed the last verse. He gave Kelowna a break after Kelowna gave him one. He said he "wasn't afraid to change [his] tune."<br /><br />It's been more than a decade since Sloan recorded an album that impressed me, even a little. Plaskett, he makes me shake my head sometimes and then two minutes later he makes me want to call an old friend from high school, or else walk these friendly, familiar Halifax streets.<br /><br />I can't think of a better or more appropriate location at which to watch Canada Day fireworks than in Dartmouth, at Alderney Landing, listening to Joel Plaskett play his songs about this place.<br /><br />Canada: it's a fine country. I'm glad I live here because it means I don't have to go through customs when I want to see my mom or the mountains or the prairies. But it was a sense of civic pride, not national pride, that I felt on Canada Day, looking up at that stage, and then across the harbour. It's not about why I came, but how I came. And it's about why I stay, most of all.<br /><br />***<br /><br />I have several half-finished blog entries. I've got to get something out. So I'm just getting this out there, knowing I hit some sloppy notes but also knowing I got it right in some places, and I think, considering, that this action is fitting.<br /><br />Joel Plaskett opened up for great big Paul McCartney last week-end, in little old Halifax, and a field full of impassioned music lovers sang along to this tune, nearly drowning him out. I hope Paul was listening.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Love This Town - Joel Plaskett<br /><br />Listen up kid<br />It’s not what you think<br />Staying up too late<br />Had a little too much to drink<br />Walked home across the bridge<br />When the Marquee shut down<br />There’s a reason that I love this town<br /><br />Nobody cares how much money you have<br />If you’ve got enough to get in a cab<br />There’ll be drinks on the house if your house burns down<br />There’s a reason that I love this town<br /><br />I saw your band in the early days<br />We all understand why you moved away<br />We’ll hold a grudge anyway<br /><br />I shot the shit with Miniature Tim<br />If he needs a tune, then I’ll write one for him<br />We like the same books and we like the same sounds<br />There’s a reason that I love this town<br /><br />I played a show<br />In Kelowna last year<br />They said pick it up Joel<br />We’re dying in here<br />Picture one hand clapping<br />And picture half that sound<br />There’s a reason that I hate that town<br /><br />If you saw my band in the early days<br />Then you’ll understand why we moved away<br />But you’ll hold a grudge anyway<br />Because it’s fun<br /><br />Davey and me<br />Face down in our soup<br />In some French restaurant<br />Outside Riviere Du Loup<br />Last night out on tour<br />We burned the place to the ground<br />There’s a reason that I love this town<br />There’s a reason that I love this town<br />There’s a reason that I love this town<br /></div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-7238240105306111002009-04-09T18:40:00.000-03:002009-04-09T20:48:13.715-03:00At The Airport<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0kH7kzcanVanoEweNPcdHwlZSHmKhPfqS8wCsEPQaAL4DjBi_mr4W6wDFpfeeOIVjJ14u2eMHd90UEAczzi6BMlO715uOPLvx8LLZo4uqo6wb0LFj70AeZV9_c0w9lijrzvZ3i-X-FGI/s1600-h/tedhayleydancing.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0kH7kzcanVanoEweNPcdHwlZSHmKhPfqS8wCsEPQaAL4DjBi_mr4W6wDFpfeeOIVjJ14u2eMHd90UEAczzi6BMlO715uOPLvx8LLZo4uqo6wb0LFj70AeZV9_c0w9lijrzvZ3i-X-FGI/s320/tedhayleydancing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322841618446861138" border="0" /></a><br />I used to say that my friend Andrea Lindsay and her boyfriend-turned-husband Guilhem were my favourite couple in the history of ever. There was all kinds of romantic about the way they defied the odds and their geographies and managed to remain together. But it wasn't just that. It was the way they were together; the way they amused one another. The way they matched each others wits and always looked to be having the best time they'd ever had.<br /><br />Andrea was my roommate during my second year of university. She slept on the couch in our living room because our other, mostly absentee, roommate Kim wanted to maintain some kind of claim to her bedroom. It was clearly a front; a way in which to insist to her mother, who often visited, that she was not in fact living with her horrible boyfriend Josh. I was lonely in September, with Kim mostly away, and with Anne, my only other real friend in Sudbury, still living on campus and not venturing far from it. Andrea's own experience living in a large house populated with girls I'd known from residence was also isolating. Sudbury was a hard place for us and our somewhat snobbish southern Ontario airs. We became fast friends, intuitively, and figuring out, in November, a way for us to live together for the remainder of the school year was, despite typical roommate issues, no small saving grace.<br /><br />Andrea was at Laurentian University for two reasons: because she could major in vocal music there and, I think even more so, because they had an exchange program with a university in France, where her boyfriend lived. Their meeting was seemingly both fated and brief. Guilhem had been a French exchange student at the high school Andrea went to for her OAC year, although he had attended the school the previous year and before Andrea had transferred into it. In the meantime she had gotten to know Guilhem's old friends, and they were introduced when he came to visit the following year. I think they knew each other for about a week before he returned to France, but they stayed in touch and made a commitment to one another, taking such a brilliant leap of faith. I can't even imagine.<br /><br />Laurentian University got rid of its exchange program and Andrea left Sudbury to finish her education in her home town of Guelph. For years, Guilhem and Andrea flew back and forth to see one another over holidays and summer vacations. I first met him during the summer following our year in Sudbury, when I spent a week-end with them in Guelph. And I understood immediately how there are things that are worth that amount of trouble. Andrea's an exceptionally clever and funny person. She's engaging and silly and just plain hilarious and it was hard to imagine how she would find an equal; someone who could light up a room and draw your ears and eyes so easily and earnestly. Guilhem is perfect; every bit as quirky and smart and open. It was the absolute opposite of being a struggle to make conversation with him. And every one of the handful of occasions on which I've found myself in his presence - and on his couch - it has felt like he too is an old friend.<br /><br />Guilhem has since immigrated to Canada. The two of them have been married and living together in Montreal for years now, and I think <span style="font-style: italic;">I </span>will be devastated if they ever break up!<br /><br />I said that I <span style="font-style: italic;">used to</span> say they were my favourite couple ever, and that's because I've decided that I feel ready to pass the torch onto another brilliant couple whose relationship I actually get to observe as more than a <span style="font-style: italic;">very</span> occasional house guest on my way through Quebec.<br /><br />My brother Ted and his finance Hayley are the new champions. Their relationship, while certainly not filled with the kinds of obstacles confronted by Andrea and Guilhem, is also pretty unique among the many couples I've gotten to know. They are honest to God high school sweethearts whom I'm pretty sure have never even been on a date, never even <span style="font-style: italic;">kissed</span> another person in their whole lives. I used to think it was weird, that surely they both must want to experience other relationships, or even to have some more time to explore their own interests as single people. But that probably just stems from some sub-conscious jealousy about how they managed to get so lucky so young.<br /><br />I've been fortunate to have Ted and Hayley here in Halifax for the past twenty months, while they both attended school out here. I haven't made the best use of this opportunity, I suppose, and I am a bit regretful about the times we should have spent together. They're both leaving in less than three weeks, to go back to Ontario, where they will surely reside, together, forever. But the times we did have were wonderful. I feel so grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to know Hayley as well as I have. I used to think she was shy but I don't anymore. I love seeing them together. I love that my brother is with the kind of person who would totally be glad to have me sleep on her couch, and with whom I could converse for hours, hardly noticing the time at all. She's smart and curious and easily entertained, and no one amuses her more than my brother. Is that the ticket? Being able to amuse one another for the rest of your lives? If that's marriage it sounds like a whole lot of fun.<br /><br />Ted and Hayley are getting married this coming August, and they're searching for a first dance song. Why they don't just dance to their song, Queen's "Your My Best Friend" is beyond me, but I suppose that in their otherwise fairly untraditional wedding they would at least like a somewhat traditional - at least slow - song to which to have that dance. So of course I volunteered my time and my music collection and spent last night making a cd of potential first dance songs.<br /><br />It was way harder than I thought it would be. Of course I couldn't include most of my favourite love songs, which are usually either a little bit dark or else of the nostalgia variety. And even happy love songs that describe situations or characters so far removed from Ted and Hayley's experience had to be eliminated. Which means all of those thanks-for-saving-me-from-all-the-crappy-things-that-happened-before-I-met-you songs were out. And really, that doesn't leave a lot. I did come up with enough to compile a cd for them, and one of the songs I included was Old Man Luedecke's "At The Airport."<br /><br />I have such a clear and embarrassing memory of seeing Old Man Luedecke play a show at Ginger's just after Sean and I broke up. I mean, the events of that evening aren't all that clear. I don't remember if it was immediately after, or if it was two weeks later, after my return from a much needed week with my Mom, in Ontario. I'm not totally sure that Sean was there too but I believe he was. I know it was while we were still living together on Allan street. I know I had to go back there that night. I remember sitting up close to the stage, and that the venue was fairly empty, and it was like Chris Luedecke was singing directly to me. Which must have been very uncomfortable for him because I was bawling my eyes out and completely wasted. My very clear memory is of how concerned he seemed about me. The room seemed so small and I felt so alone and terrible and lost and his concerned expression was a small but remarkable comfort. I must have stopped crying, but I stayed, and I listened to every song. He is, after all, the kind of authentic folk singer it is difficult to turn away from.<br /><br />Now, I don't know Chris Luedecke very well, but he has always struck me as being a worrier. In fact, I am pretty sure that at some point during every conversation I have ever had with him he has expressed concern about something he felt he should be doing or had not done properly. I could win medals in Worrying Events were they to be introduced, and I hope they never are, because I obviously don't need another thing to worry about. I'm extremely confident in my ability to freak out about inconsequential things. But I think Chris Luedecke would make for a pretty mean competitor. I think a part of having that kind of constitution involves having a difficult time with acts of faith. Not that faith is impossible, but it is rare and, for me at least, almost always counter-intuitively second-guessed. So it makes me really happy and hopeful that a guy like Chris can write some of the songs that he does.<br /><br />I like to think that I'm open to the possibility of wonder and whimsy and - yes - true love, even as I get older and more distrustful and more isolated and self-involved. It's refreshing to hear love songs that are just about love; not obstacles or regret or fear or character building. It's a bold kind of honesty that I defensively shrink from with explanations and apologies.<br /><br />Oh, Ted and Hayley are lucky, and I think they should dance like robots to Queen not <span style="font-style: italic;">even if </span>it might make them laugh during that very special moment, but absolutely positively because it will.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br />At The Airport - Old Man Luedecke<br /><br />Oh the static of our phone calls,<br />Coming down like brick walls.<br />And you're so beautiful I can barely see you.<br />It's like we've never touched,<br />Our kisses long but rushed<br />And your cheeks have never seemed so serene.<br /><br />At the airport, at the airport,<br />There's kisses there that cannot be believed.<br />At the airport, at the airport,<br />There's kisses there whose memory never leaves.<br /><br />And in the baggage line,<br />I'm in another time,<br />But mostly all we can really say is "Hey."<br />But I get to take you home<br />Where we can be alone,<br />It's better than any Christmas Day.<br /><br />At the airport, at the airport,<br />There's kisses there that cannot be believed.<br />At the airport, at the airport,<br />There's kisses there whose memory never leaves.<br /><br />Oh the static of our phone calls,<br />Coming down like brick walls.<br />And you're so beautiful I can barely see you.<br />It's like we've never touched,<br />Our kisses long but rushed<br />And your cheeks have never seemed so serene.<br /><br />At the airport, at the airport,<br />There's kisses there that cannot be believed.<br />At the airport, at the airport,<br />There's kisses there whose memory never leaves.<br /></div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-89645925487647235202009-03-01T16:39:00.000-04:002012-06-30T13:47:00.979-03:00Left and Leaving<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIp0UlQSjwJHT5kK59470_A_Sgao5svpDhDEiceRzgS11bkjim_qzleXqkJ0J5zdir-dvsSQgViPp0LhhjeSmEFHIZfFZMtVKhm9QSBrsfK-pAYUP3RE5YPGil0TaATcpOAPQz8T5n8xc/s1600-h/DSCF0415.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308348108042930290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIp0UlQSjwJHT5kK59470_A_Sgao5svpDhDEiceRzgS11bkjim_qzleXqkJ0J5zdir-dvsSQgViPp0LhhjeSmEFHIZfFZMtVKhm9QSBrsfK-pAYUP3RE5YPGil0TaATcpOAPQz8T5n8xc/s320/DSCF0415.JPG" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 240px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
I have such a heavy heart these days. If I think about it too much my eyes tear up and I have to find a corner to hide in. And I can't avoid it; I stand on that street to smoke, I walk down it to get to and from. I think about places I could go to eat my lunch, places I could sit and read when my work day is done. I wonder where or if I will meet my friends. A lyric from another Weakerthans song hits me over and over: "A spectre's haunting Albert street." If anyone loves a city like I love Halifax, it is John K. Samson (Winnipeg). And Barrington street, like Albert street, is haunted by the things that it has been. Worst of all, there is nothing I can do.<br />
<br />
The block of Barrington street between Prince and Sackville streets is my turf. It is my neighbourhood more than any neighbourhood I have ever paid rent to live in. And of course it is not the buildings but the people within them who create community, and when the buildings are left vacant, there is nothing to foster that community, is there? Brick and wood are assigned the characteristics of the people who inhabit them, and it is such a tragedy to look through tears in paper covering glass, to reveal empty spaces that used to be filled.<br />
<br />
I first got to know Barrington street in the fall of 1997, when I worked at United Bookstore. The manager of United Bookstore, Dave, is still one of my favourite people in the city, and we still see one another nearly every day, for brief moments that never cease to brighten my day for our easy familarity; his relentless and fond teasing. We talk about music and books and people we both know. When I first moved here and only knew a handful of people, he invited me to spend holidays with his family. He told me stories about his own history in Halifax, a transplanted Torontonian himself. He still tells people about how he taught me how to change a light bulb. United Bookstore does not only sell books. They also sell junk food and cigarettes and bus tickets, so there were customers we would see every day; friendly faces from the offices upstairs in the Roy Building, who became part of the scenery; part of the community that I was also a part of, of people who spend their days in down-town Halifax.<br />
<br />
When I moved back to Halifax in 2001, after my brief return to Toronto, I spent a couple of months waiting for Sean, my then-boyfriend, to join me here. He sent me a series of mix tapes during this period, that each included at least one song from The Weakerthans' recent album, <span style="font-style: italic;">Left and Leaving</span> and at least one song from Sarah Harmer's recent <span style="font-style: italic;">You Were Here</span>. It's remarkably coincidental that both album titles so explicitly refer to space and time. And if it isn't intentional, both records nevertheless feel like concept albums, exploring the respective speakers' personal spaces. I always placed <span style="font-style: italic;">You Were Here </span>alongside of my relationship with Sean, from the basement apartment he inhabited on Woodbine Avenue in Toronto (the apartment that always smelled of bleach, as described in "Basement Apartment") to the eventual knowledge of his infidelity ("Coffee Stain") , and all of the good stuff that came between and after; like it was written for us. And while <span style="font-style: italic;">You Were Here </span>seemed to have a lot to say about my interior life, <span style="font-style: italic;">Left and Leaving</span> spoke to my surroundings and my ideas of "home." These songs were wonderful gifts, through the mail, from the town where I was born, to the town where I chose to live.<br />
<br />
It is funny, because I have always had the strangest relationship with <span style="font-style: italic;">Left and Leaving</span>. Sometimes, I swear it is the best album ever written. And on other occasions I am so irritated by its intentional cleverness. All last week, I kept singing those songs to myself.<br />
<br />
The Barrington street location of Sam the Record Man closed its doors on February 20, 2007. I worked there for a couple of years. Sean hired me, several months after we broke up, and I maintain that it was the best possible thing for our relationship. It helped me slide into a friendship, our relationship changed necessarily by our new boss-employee relationship, and by seeing each other, all the time, in this brand new context. The store's closure was sudden and shocking, but I could hardly say entirely unexpected. Everyone who worked there knew it was pretty amazing that we all still had jobs. Record stores were on the brink of disappearing. It was a hard blow for everyone who cared about music. The building was a landmark, and everyone who grew up in Halifax seemed to have recollections of purchasing favourite albums there or seeing local bands performing in-stores. For a week my co-workers and I put merchandise in boxes and boxes on trucks and congregated, afterwards, next-door at the Granite Brewery to grieve over pints of Peculiar. If we were not all friends, exactly, we were all familiar, and of course nothing was ever going to be the same again. We would see one another infrequently. We would miss and be missed, and it was so sad, saying good-bye.<br />
<br />
There are things about working on Barrington street that seem inconsequential but that are actually enormous. Buying cigarettes from Dave; buying my coffee from one of several people whose first names I know, at Just Us! coffee roasters; the deaf man rumoured to have been a former boxer, who asks for change at the corner of Prince and Barrington, who tells all the women he loves them, and jokingly threatens to fight all of the men. And until its closure one week ago, there was the Granite Brewery/Ginger's, where I not only worked the door in exchange for beer on many nights when there were performances upstairs, but which I also relied on to be a meeting place or at least a place where I could spend my lunch breaks in warm company, with coffee and a book.<br />
<br />
There is another entry for the Granite, and surely one for Sam's, because they are too big on their own. But they are also inseparable from my experience of Barrington street. I was introduced to a lot of friends in that bar, and I got to know a lot of other friends more intimately there. It was wonderful to walk into the bar and see staff from United Bookstore, Sam the Record Man, Just Us!, Neptune Theatre, and JWD (where I now work), all enjoying the personal relationships they had with that space, and watching relationships develop with one another. Of course the alcohol helped foster much of the camaraderie, but I haven't had a drink in over seven months, and I still feel like a piece of my heart is being ripped out and trampled on.<br />
<br />
I love my job. I work in the coolest used bookstore in the history of ever. But I worry about my security there, about the security of that street and the small businesses that make my neighbourhood what it is. I worry about the paper-covered windows; the buildings that stand vacant for months and years.<br />
<br />
And I don't know what to do with myself. I feel aimless. I know I can call people on the phone, but it isn't the same. I miss the organic nature of the community that the Granite Brewery allowed. The best things about this city are vanishing. I miss my friends already, and I feel like my home is slipping away.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Left and Leaving - The Weakerthans<br />
<br />
My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)<br />
Through buildings gone missing like teeth.<br />
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,<br />
Sparkled with broken glass.<br />
I'm back with scars to show.<br />
Back with the streets I know<br />
Will never take me anywhere but here.<br />
The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand,<br />
The strangers whose faces I know.<br />
We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say " I wanted it this way"<br />
Wait for the year to drown.<br />
Spring forward, fall back down.<br />
I'm trying not to wonder where you are.<br />
All this time lingers, undefined.<br />
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.<br />
Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:<br />
a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest,<br />
the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires,<br />
new words for old desires,<br />
and every birthday card I threw away.<br />
I wait in 4/4 time.<br />
Count yellow highway lines<br />
That you're relying on to lead you home.</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-931345871188181122009-02-01T15:49:00.000-04:002009-02-01T17:03:15.761-04:00Galbraith Street<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAeUHmKdJzAibS-7Xd6PC10Sd_nN2kWbTBxPcmQteUzq7Q3uQ3twntw9Dm1hETRFccEecHDsgltp8zneTTJBwGmErHeMGAmaZSGXy4kuF4uCo3sksFa0ErKw2fCexL2GSLoDocSptyPnU/s1600-h/christmasvandusen.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAeUHmKdJzAibS-7Xd6PC10Sd_nN2kWbTBxPcmQteUzq7Q3uQ3twntw9Dm1hETRFccEecHDsgltp8zneTTJBwGmErHeMGAmaZSGXy4kuF4uCo3sksFa0ErKw2fCexL2GSLoDocSptyPnU/s320/christmasvandusen.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297937339301876978" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfPTAaMPK-mwVPdLST2Ght25XeVEgxP59hRwuytjyVQmjtrKmKT7dv5Bh5MU_sDxVlSYZ51wbo9DOIKEtQQ_tuNY3U5KprLE2OVOWfKtKRAvf71rESqo1OTvS8uHdggGNS_QWbmDkWss8/s1600-h/vandusencouch.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfPTAaMPK-mwVPdLST2Ght25XeVEgxP59hRwuytjyVQmjtrKmKT7dv5Bh5MU_sDxVlSYZ51wbo9DOIKEtQQ_tuNY3U5KprLE2OVOWfKtKRAvf71rESqo1OTvS8uHdggGNS_QWbmDkWss8/s320/vandusencouch.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297937338425437346" border="0" /></a><br />Like the speaker in this song, I've lived in many homes on many streets, and said several sad good-byes. But Van Dusen Blvd: <span style="font-style: italic;">None compared to the good-byes I said there</span>.<br /><br />When I was nine years old, my parents purchased a much bigger house in a much more upscale neighbourhood and residing there, as I did, until I was twenty, Edgevalley drive of course felt like home, but when I think of my childhood, it is to the red brick home on that dead-end street that I immediately return.<br /><br />225 Van Dusen Blvd. was the middle house on a dead-end street, nestled in between the Tracado's and the Chalk's homes and across the street from the Lundy's. Delta Tracado lived on the corner of another dead-end street, and when I crawled through the hole in the wooden picket fence that divided our properties I was only a few steps away from the mountain deposited by the snowplow, out of which we would make fortresses and ammunition. Behind the pile of snow and the imposing fence was a factory that we only imagined. The factory at the end of Van Dusen, alternately, was easily visible through the wire fence, and it clearly belonged to Canadian Tire. It must have been noisy living where we did, but I never recall the noise of trucks and work as a nuisance; more as the natural soundtrack to the chaos of childhood.<br /><br />We had a backyard big enough for a small metal swing set and gymnastics routines and the forts that my brother Geoff and my neighbours and I would make out of found cardboard boxes, usually acquired from the forbidden factory property. Geoff and I have enduring memories of the acquisition of said boxes. I remember how Delta and I would taunt him relentlessly. I remember asking him to sneak through a hole in the fence to retrieve a cardboard box I had spotted, only to turn around and tell my mother that he was disobeying her by trespassing onto the factory property. One time, Delta and I hid him in her basement insisting that the cops were looking for him and the property he'd stolen. We made him be quiet and fearful for hours while we laughed at his expense. On one occasion I even made him wait up until the wee hours of the morning to attempt to retrieve the soccer ball he'd kicked over the fence in our backyard during the daylight hours. I told him that it was the only time of day during which the guards were on their breaks.<br /><br />But often, Geoff and I were on the same team. Such was the case with the ball tree we planted in Sarah Lundy's yard. The tennis ball miraculously sprouted beach balls and soccer balls while she was asleep at night. We were all friends when we skated on the rink the Lundy's would make in their backyard. I remember pushing one another across the ice in big plastic garbage bins.<br /><br />Delta's house always smelled exotic. Her parents had accents and the Portuguese food they cooked made her house smell different from my own. And they had plastic covering their furniture! I don't know how that fit into their perceived foreignness, but it certainly was different from my own home.<br /><br />My father would take Geoff and I for walks, across Islington avenue, to the very end of Van Dusen Blvd. and to Mimico Creek. Often, he called these "quests," and he created characters we would encounter along the way. Or we would walk in the other direction, through the industrial landscape, often collecting bits of discarded plastic that we called "sparklies."<br /><br />Cats were a big part of living there. Xerxes was my companion for my entire life up until that point, and he even made it to Edgevalley Drive with the rest of the family. But there was also Sparky, the stray cat who disappeared as mysteriously as he'd appeared. For years Geoff and I wrote letters to Sparky and threw them out onto the lawn, hoping he'd receive them and return to our home. Instead, several new strays would appear in Sparky's place. My mom had a particularly soft spot for the cat with one green eye and one blue eye, whom we alternately called both "Whitey" and "Dirt Pit."<br /><br />The garage at the end of our gravel driveway was painted two very uncomplimentary shades of green. (When I walked by the house a couple of years ago I was shocked to see that the garage still retained that colour scheme!) Delta and I plugged my portable cassette player into the outlet there and we made up gymnastics routines to Madonna's <span style="font-style: italic;">Like A Virgin</span> and performed these for my parents. I never mastered the back flip. I can still feel the pain of landing flat on my back on the hard ground.<br /><br />I remember walking to Islington school across busy streets, holding my brother's hand, past the subway station and the Ship Centre, up the metal stairs to Cordova Ave. I felt an immeasurable sense of pride and responsibility. We walked past the insurance building that my father had made me fearful of by insisting that if I went on their property they would paint me green. (I'm sure you've forgotten, Dad, <span style="font-style: italic;">but I never did!</span>) Past Kenway Park, where once a year the employees of the Bell telephone building would have a family party that the neighbourhood kids got to attend.<br /><br />There are so many other things. There were so many other kids.<br /><br />My brother Ted was too young to have any real memories of Van Dusen, but I'm so glad that Geoff can still recall some of them. That is the best thing about siblings - having someone with whom you can share that perspective. Nobody else will ever know me like that.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Galbraith Street - Ron Sexsmith<br /><br />I woke up on Galbraith Street<br />Where the houses stood like twins<br />Oh and even though the door's been closed<br />I can find a way to get back in<br /><br />For in daydreams my mind returns<br />Like a ghost upon the hill<br />As I knock upon old doors again<br />And find my friends all live there still<br /><br />So many good times to speak of in a life<br />But none compared to the good times I had there<br /><br />The world looks so much brighter when<br />You believe in every word<br />Now I'm holding on to all those years<br />Like a tear before it falls unheard<br /><br />So many goodbyes to speak of in a life<br />But none compared to the goodbyes I said there<br /><br />The sun went down on Galbraith Street<br />I saw it from my childhood bed<br />As the red and gold brick houses stood<br />Underneath a crimson sky that bled</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-59594689910163276122009-01-24T11:56:00.000-04:002009-01-24T14:00:27.524-04:00Carey<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsUw7c6Axz27nU8Ryi7AY-fM8oLXYQUpU9Ad5AVP9GiQda-SLVh79AzaA-uRulgGkt4uoyuHFV5aNFVCH_3iq9C3Dw0yOIVKhkRnZhqvr1dei9m3Am0Fvj3br95S3d5UGBj6qPfskicU8/s1600-h/summerstreet.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 262px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsUw7c6Axz27nU8Ryi7AY-fM8oLXYQUpU9Ad5AVP9GiQda-SLVh79AzaA-uRulgGkt4uoyuHFV5aNFVCH_3iq9C3Dw0yOIVKhkRnZhqvr1dei9m3Am0Fvj3br95S3d5UGBj6qPfskicU8/s320/summerstreet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294917142408464530" border="0" /></a><br />It's the summer of 1999. Joni Mitchell's <span style="font-style: italic;">Blue </span>is playing on the tiny record player that sits atop of Karen's refrigerator in her apartment on Summer street. She and her two roommates have turned their living room into a third bedroom to save money, to all live together, so the tiny kitchen is where they congregate; where they entertain friends when they come over. And the kitchen <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> tiny, and usually cluttered with dirty dishes that they are usually warring about.<br /><br />The weather is perfect. Just outside the kitchen door, we smoke cigarettes on the fire escape with Karen's neighbours and friends and we look down and across at the graveyard while Kitty's meows compete with Joni Mitchell's voice and the sunlight to try and figure first in this memory of this perfect summer day.<br /><br />Everybody Karen was friends with was a student then. Everybody except me. But I would finish work at two in the afternoon and have free time like students and I was student-age, so I reaped some of the benefits of living within this young city, this enormous student ghetto, without actually having to write essays or study for exams or owe the government tens of thousands of dollars.<br /><br />I was friends, then, with a ridiculous number of people who suffered from mental illness and/or substance abuse in very pronounced ways that were very new to me and also, I must sheepishly admit, very exciting. I was also friends with a lot of hippies. Like, serious hippies. The kinds who live off the land in places called things like Gandhi Farm. (Honest. To. God.)<br /><br />Karen and her friends, maybe because they were in school and had that focus, were a lot more stable than most of the other people I was hanging around with then. And believe me, they weren't <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> stable. Karen would have gotten along wonderfully with most of my friends from Toronto, but I know she thought that Butterfly and Kenova and Skylark were all pretty weird, and I don't think she quite trusted any of them.<br /><br />Karen stole my boyfriend from me, is how we met. Some months later she approached me at a party we were both at and invited me out for a "coffee" at the Grad House. I went because I was totally curious, and knowing Karen now, I am sure her own curiosity is what initiated her request. We drank beer instead, and the rest is history. A very significant chunk of my history with Halifax and its people can be traced back to that meeting.<br /><br />I really liked Karen - immediately, intuitively - from the first time I met her through our common ex, in the slightly glorified rooming house they were both staying in above Bob & Lori's Food Emporium. But it took me a long time to really trust her.<br /><br />She was such a King's student. (For non-Haligonians: King's College is a university in Halifax that's affiliated with Dalhousie. Its Foundation Year program is one of those Great Books things, and all first year students skim very quickly through many of the texts considered canonical in the western world. A lot of King's students come from private schools, and a lot of them come from Ontario. They seem to like to talk really loudly about how smart they are. A lot of them dress like hippies and have the kind of naive sense of social justice that is borne out of having lived a very privileged and entitled life. To be fair, they are also, usually, eighteen years old.) Karen would throw around a lot of big names in a way that struck me as being kind of obnoxious and intentionally intimidating. It also made me feel incredibly insecure.<br /><br />But Karen was no hippie. And she was no entitled private school kid. And she was not easy. I know she struggled with a lot of personal issues. And she did some pretty unconventional and interesting things, like taking a semester off to go live in Yellowknife, NWT. Stuff like that surprised me about Karen. We spent one Valentine's Day at a strip bar (The Lighthouse, RIP). In fact, for a month or two we hung out there once a week, 'cause we thought it was a pretty funny thing for us to be doing, until it just got depressing.<br /><br />Karen was also a gossip, and maybe that made me hesitant to trust her. She was fascinated with other people's lives and wanted to know everything.<br /><br />But all of these concerns, every last one, are ones that I have about myself.<br /><br />I think that, a lot of the time, I felt kind of together and responsible around my really messed up friends, and I think I sometimes felt like kind of an aimless fuck-up around Karen.<br /><br />Mostly, though, Karen was remarkably easy to be around. We liked the same albums and books. We laughed at the same things. The same kind of curiosity about people that made her talk made her remarkably easy to talk <span style="font-style: italic;">to</span>. Her education and intellectual curiosity inspired me to further my own education. So many hours over beer or coffee, conversation into the wee hours of the morning, and it's hard to imagine how we fill these hours in other places with other people we didn't used to know then, but so it goes.<br /><br />The building Karen lived in on Summer street was torn down several years ago. They left the facade up, but it just makes the building look so shallow; it's depressing. I know the building was creaky and old and expensive or impossible to repair but who wants to live in a building without character, or quirks, or history? Not me.<br /><br />A couple of months ago Karen came back to Halifax for a visit, from her home in Japan, and she brought her new husband and these weird Ramen noodle-flavoured caramels. We didn't have much time together, because there is never enough of that - time - but what we had was perfect. I could count on my fingers the number of people I trust completely as friends, as constants, and Karen is certainly among them. It was like those years in between didn't matter, or were inconsequential, to the fact of this unlikely, unavoidable friendship.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><br />Carey - Joni Mitchell<br /><br />The wind is in from Africa<br />Last night I couldn't sleep<br />Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey<br />But it's really not my home<br />My fingernails are filthy, I got beach tar on my feet<br />And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy french cologne<br /><br />Oh Carey get out your cane<br />And I'll put on some silver<br />Oh you're a mean old daddy, but I like you fine<br /><br />Come on down to the mermaid cafe and I will buy you a bottle of wine<br />And we'll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down<br />Let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers<br />A round for these friends of mine<br />Let's have another round for the bright red devil<br />Who keeps me in this tourist town<br /><br />Come on, Carey, get out your cane<br />I'll put on some silver<br />Oh you're a mean old daddy, but I like you<br /><br />Maybe I'll go to Amsterdam<br />Or maybe I'll go to Rome<br />And rent me a grand piano and put some flowers round my room<br />But lets not talk about fare-thee-welis now<br />The night is a starry dome.<br />And they're playin that scratchy rock and roll<br />Beneath the matalla moon<br /><br />Come on, Carey, get out your cane<br />And I'll put on some silver<br />You're a mean old daddy, but I like you<br /><br />The wind is in from Africa<br />Last night I couldnt sleep<br />Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here<br />But, it's really not my home<br />Maybe it's been too long a time<br />Since I was scramblin down in the street<br />Now they got me used to that clean white linen<br />And that fancy french cologne<br /><br />Oh Carey, get out your cane<br />I'll put on my finest silver<br />We'll go to the mermaid cafe<br />Have fun tonight<br />I said, oh, youre a mean old daddy, but you're out of sight<br /></div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-23402795962649282892009-01-13T18:40:00.000-04:002009-01-13T19:15:35.025-04:00Bad As They SeemThe absolute worst month of my life was spent living in a tiny trailer in Barrie, Ontario. I had just graduated from high school and September and university and freedom were so close I could practically touch them. But practically was not actually, and this scheme concocted by myself and my friend Kathleen looked like it just might work.<br /><br />Kathleen's family had a cottage in Barrie. It's a weird place to have a cottage. My understanding is that when the cottage was built, it was still very much on the outskirts of Barrie, and that any neighbours were far afield and fellow cottagers. But by the time I was introduced to Kathleen's cottage, it looked like a fairly rustic but basically ordinary house on an ordinary suburban street. It was just a couple of blocks away from the lake, but it was equally close to the Loblaws. We didn't spend much time in the cottage, though, except to make use of its indoor plumbing. The cottage was used not only by Kathleen's immediate family but by aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents as well, so our residence thereabouts was conditional on not actually staying in the cottage. We lived in the trailer out back.<br /><br />I had always thought it would be cool to live in a trailer. I really don't anymore. The trailer Kathleen and I shared was especially tiny; one of those little metal boxes where the one bed folds down to become the kitchen table, and the other bed turns into the sofa. The tiny refrigerator worked, and we kept out food there, but when we wanted to make meals we had to transport the ingredients into the cottage itself. The toilet didn't work, either. Nor did the sink. The trailer was really only practical for sleeping in.<br /><br />My mom later confessed that she never would have allowed me to move to Barrie if she'd actually thought we'd be able to find jobs there. But we had; both of us were hired to work at Taco Bell, where we suffered all the degradation that accompanies working in a fast food restaurant. We additionally suffered a sexist manager who didn't let girls work the deep fryer; instead both Kathleen and I were on the front line - taking orders and cleaning the plastic tables.<br /><br />I honestly don't remember much anymore about the month we spent in Barrie. Little incidents are recalled like snapshots. That time we had a "party" and invited some people we worked with over to drink beer and listen to music. A dozen of my cds were stolen that night. There was the oasis-like evening Kathleen and I spent singing Christmas carols in the public bathroom down by the lake.<br /><br />Kathleen claimed to have food poisoning, and she took a week off work. I didn't believe it then and I don't believe it now, but I don't know much about Kathleen, and I really didn't then, either. A few years ago a friend of mine made a comment - completely unrelated - about someone else whose closest friends all seemed to live far away. "Well of course she thinks they're her best friends," this person observed, "It's so easy to be friends with someone you never see." I'd never thought about that before, but it immediately made me think of Kathleen. Her two best friends were childhood friends. Neither of them knew much about the actual events of her life. One of them, Kathleen confessed, would have been horrified to know about some of the things she had done. One of these friends lived in Barrie, but the two of them didn't see each other at all that month. Of course it hurt her heart. And there were other things going on with Kathleen, as well. She was miserable, uncommunicative, probably clinically depressed.<br /><br />But I wasn't old enough or experienced enough to know how to deal with Kathleen's allusions or depression or secrecy, and she wasn't comfortable enough to be honest with me. That little tin box just felt like resentment and the ghost of a friendship.<br /><br />The way we left things makes a good story, but there was nothing good about the experience we kind of shared. And I got off comparatively easy. If Kathleen is anything like who she was when she was eighteen I'm sure she's haunted still by things I've never known.<br /><br />We had a stupid fight. I have no idea what it was about, but having had enough of Kathleen's bitterness and coldness and negativity I finally told her to "Fuck off," to which she responded, "Don't ever tell me to fuck off in <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> trailer." I was bawling my eyes out as I telephoned my mom at two o'clock in the morning and asked her to come pick us up. We kind of made up as we sat there waiting for the sight of my mom's headlights. Or at least we reached an understanding about how some things are just insurmountable. I really loved Kathleen, but we weren't ever really friends.<br /><br />All month long, I listened to Hayden's little indie cassette in my yellow Sony sports walkman; taking the bus to work, walking to and from the grocery store. I obviously can't blame the dirgey tone of that album for my misery, but it sure didn't help. And yet, it was perfect. I just wanted to wallow, and Hayden did it for me, that's for sure.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Bad as they Seem - Hayden<br /><br />Girl of my dreams...<br />Things are as bad as they seem<br />She is only sixteen<br />That's why she's only a dream<br />Woman of my dreams...<br />Lives right down my street<br />Has a daughter who's sixteen<br />That's why she's only a dream<br /><br />What do I do this for?<br />Got to get out some more<br />Go down to the grocery store<br />Meet someone I'll adore<br />Someone who'll make me laugh<br />Someone to be my better half<br />Keep me warm under the sack<br />Share with me my midnight snack<br /><br />Job of my dreams...<br />Things are as bad as they seem<br />Working where I did at fourteen<br />Making less pay it seems<br /><br />Chorus<br /><br />House of my dreams...<br />Things are as bad as they seem<br />My parents' house I'll stay for free<br />Until I'm at least fourty-three</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-65187053108582881382008-12-21T13:27:00.000-04:002009-01-24T14:31:15.311-04:00Merry Christmas (I Love You)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBc7oB6O3Dm7yPvYCvaeWOEhAXkSB57vlCb7T9UcX2F7wVeqm0DG1pvCAuo0ASIjDuA0TseZiYJaAiNbMrTA-gPH6-7mj_TBePsAkSYPLal_btLMxD5w96muqsjOmoRTzeZTMnioffl78/s1600-h/grandpa.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 245px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBc7oB6O3Dm7yPvYCvaeWOEhAXkSB57vlCb7T9UcX2F7wVeqm0DG1pvCAuo0ASIjDuA0TseZiYJaAiNbMrTA-gPH6-7mj_TBePsAkSYPLal_btLMxD5w96muqsjOmoRTzeZTMnioffl78/s320/grandpa.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294929613241028258" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8W2sER587LWY7wnb9nSv6hrsoEUA_xhLfbflgTjMFUWTKT3Oz9kE0kED3ChyBf3qCvAp1sLcrgUWujBn4WRASylhXE0VeurDbBx4h4yXKDGcBRfm2beFqoSBOrqus5f6BP4558eVJ_kk/s1600-h/memomgeoff.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 312px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8W2sER587LWY7wnb9nSv6hrsoEUA_xhLfbflgTjMFUWTKT3Oz9kE0kED3ChyBf3qCvAp1sLcrgUWujBn4WRASylhXE0VeurDbBx4h4yXKDGcBRfm2beFqoSBOrqus5f6BP4558eVJ_kk/s320/memomgeoff.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294929309033672674" border="0" /></a><br />The best Christmas album to come out in this millennium is, I think, Hawksley Workman's "Almost A Full Moon." In this, he celebrates family and friends and the holiday season. This song in particular speaks to the warmth and love that exists despite the unexpected and tragic events that happen in the world.<br /><br />I'm not going home for Christmas this year. "Home" in this instance meaning where my mom lives. I won't be waiting up with my brothers until midnight or one in the morning to sneak downstairs to open stockings that "Santa" has just recently filled for us with Archie comics, clementines and Kinder surprise eggs. I won't be going to Burlington to see Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Barb and Uncle Peter and Sam and Alex, and to not eat turkey and cranberry sauce but scarf down mashed potatoes and stovetop stuffing. I won't be hearing Grandpa's recitation of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" or singing carols with my mom and whomever else can be convinced, around the piano.<br /><br />My brother Geoff will likely not be there to wait up for stockings either. He's just moved into a new apartment with his new wife Patricia. And my brother Ted won't arrive in Toronto until 11:30 am Christmas Day. There was no Chester family dinner at the Old Mill restaurant this year. And Sean lives in PEI this season, so my Christmas mix making was even independent of him.<br /><br />But on Christmas Eve I will be seeing my brother Ted and his fiance Hayley at my Dad's house in Porter's Lake, where he lives with his wife Susan. Christmas always manages to feel Christmasey, wherever I am. I feel blessed.<br /><br />I meant to write all kinds of blog entries about Christmas songs this month, but shopping and work and house cleaning has left me with little free time, and, I suppose, I just haven't felt the exactly right kind of inspiration for writing as much as I'd like.<br /><br />Friends and family near and far: I wish you all Happy Holidays. I wish we could all be together. You're dear to me and in my thoughts and my heart.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Merry Christmas (I Love You) - Hawksley Workman<br /><br />If god takes you he leaves<br />a huge footprint of love<br />and kindness behind<br />which is where you once stood<br /><br />And I know you're afraid<br />to get on the plane<br />after what happened that day<br />and selfishly I want you here in my way<br /><br />But animals come<br />and animals go<br />and love is just a laundry line<br />we hang on until<br /><br />we're dried out by the sun<br />and when you think your turn is done<br />you end up getting dirty<br />and it's all again begun<br /><br />Now words i think are just<br />a noisy dirty wind<br />makes the trouble we get in<br />so why do we speak<br /><br />Now we made another war,<br />that's what men are good for<br />men with stupid insecurities<br />and not a lot more<br /><br />And satisfied they try<br />its written about again<br />but who the hell reads history?<br />apparently not men<br /><br />'Cause nothing's guaranteed<br />except the politics of need<br />did the Romans see the ship go down<br />or were they asleep?<br /><br />I shouldn't expect to live<br />and I shouldn't expect to die<br />but I wouldnt mind being beside you, dear<br />on that laundry line to dry<br /><br />And for my grandma and my brother<br />my father and my mother<br />and you my sweetest lover<br />to you all I will say<br /><br />Merry Christmas I love you<br />and god is above you<br />Merry Christmas I love you<br />and god is above you<br /><br />Merry Christmas I love you</div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-86769862941774734932008-12-07T20:40:00.000-04:002009-01-24T16:03:23.880-04:00Fairytale of New York<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvRTg_QSFKel6I6_14RnyEqSU79tMJWAPsh4ZFRi5xcOabHfHRWNEUc32kOmRfl7b-uJXr5mz_ZviTxyOG04xrauIb8JhsCbIYmaac5eTAxI7RwLbGQp9Xsf1YzB9g-kVfksX5oBIGhvQ/s1600-h/mejustinvancouver.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvRTg_QSFKel6I6_14RnyEqSU79tMJWAPsh4ZFRi5xcOabHfHRWNEUc32kOmRfl7b-uJXr5mz_ZviTxyOG04xrauIb8JhsCbIYmaac5eTAxI7RwLbGQp9Xsf1YzB9g-kVfksX5oBIGhvQ/s320/mejustinvancouver.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277228749816657522" border="0" /></a><br />Fairytale of New York is my A#1 absolute favourite Christmas song in the history of ever. No two ways about it. This is a very informed claim, having enthusiastically sifted through thousands of versions of hundreds of Christmas songs, because I am weird like that. And because, thankfully, Sean is weird like that, and introduced me to the whole Christmas music phenomenon.<br /><br />He did not, however, introduce me to this song.<br /><br />I get kind of pissed off by people who make the claim that this hardly counts as a Christmas song because said people feel they can listen to it all year round. It's a very derogatory comment to make about Christmas music. But truth be told, my formative and best memories of "Fairytale of New York" are of Toronto summer nights spent dancing sloppily, drunkenly, and with Justin, to this song at the James Joyce Pub, strummed by that guy who would play all of our requests. For us, he played The Beatles, David Bowie, Stan Rogers, and the Pogues. Now, I mind the Toronto summer heat, but then I never did, and for reveling in it there was no better companion than my dear friend and very first drinking buddy.<br /><br />Justin and I had a very easy relationship that was sometimes made complicated by our youth, our sensitivities, our genders, and our unabashed enthusiasms that occasionally got tricky with our tendencies to go hard rather than going home. I remember a particularly sobering and difficult conversation at Hob Nob Donuts following one such evening. I remember it like I was approaching the end of something that I needed to have in my life. I remember feeling like I <span style="font-style: italic;">knew</span> that we could never go back to the way things were; the way things were when our friendship was uncomplicated by things that should have been left out of him and I. It was okay, though. We were okay. We repeated some of the same mistakes I suppose; but no, they weren't really mistakes - just growing pains I guess. And I think we learned through one another a lot of what we really wanted.<br /><br />I also think about Justin when I think about Christmas, though the soundtrack to our Christmases together would have been far less inspiring than the soundtracks to our summers. We began a few consecutive Christmases at Country Style Donuts at Dundas and Islington, it being the only place open so late on Christmas Eve night, and I'm sure that whatever godawful music they were playing there was entirely appropriate to a suburban donut store franchise. These evenings would follow our tradition of tobogganing at Centennial Hill with our brothers.<br /><br />Justin's mom sold her house on Saskatoon rd. several years ago. He has no family left in Etobicoke. My mom lives on Kipling Avenue, now, in an area that's fairly close to the home I grew up in on Edgevalley Drive, but in a house that is not quite my home.<br /><br />I don't get to see Justin much anymore. It's been a couple of years since his last visit to Halifax, and now when I go "home" he's not one of the people I get to see. He has his own house with his wife and a dog (!) in the Ottawa Valley. I've never even <span style="font-style: italic;">seen</span> it. We hardly ever talk on the phone, and the rare emails we send are fairly concise. Justin has always been sparing with his words. He is, through and through, a man of action.<br /><br />The closest friends I had in high school were Justin, Katherine, and Tim, and they remain, despite distance and generally pretty shoddy upkeep, three of my closest friends in the world, to my mind at least. They are all very good with words, but Justin has never ever needed to reassure me. Not even that one time I thought he did. He is one of the few people in the world, like family, whom I know will always love me; and he does love me, in his understated and very loyal Justin way, just for being me.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Fairytale of New York - The Pogues<br /><br /><p> It was Christmas Eve babe<br />In the drunk tank<br />An old man said to me, won't see another one<br />And then he sang a song<br />The Rare Old Mountain Dew<br />I turned my face away<br />And dreamed about you </p> <p> Got on a lucky one<br />Came in eighteen to one<br />I've got a feeling<br />This year's for me and you<br />So happy Christmas<br />I love you baby<br />I can see a better time<br />When all our dreams come true </p> <p> They've got cars big as bars<br />They've got rivers of gold<br />But the wind goes right through you<br />It's no place for the old<br />When you first took my hand<br />On a cold Christmas Eve<br />You promised me<br />Broadway was waiting for me </p> <p> You were handsome<br />You were pretty<br />Queen of New York City<br />When the band finished playing<br />They howled out for more<br />Sinatra was swinging,<br />All the drunks they were singing<br />We kissed on a corner<br />Then danced through the night </p> <p> The boys of the NYPD choir<br />Were singing "Galway Bay"<br />And the bells were ringing out<br />For Christmas day </p> <p> You're a bum<br />You're a punk<br />You're an old slut on junk<br />Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed<br />You scumbag, you maggot<br />You cheap lousy faggot<br />Happy Christmas your arse<br />I pray God it's our last </p> <p> I could have been someone<br />Well so could anyone<br />You took my dreams from me<br />When I first found you<br />I kept them with me babe<br />I put them with my own<br />Can't make it all alone<br />I've built my dreams around you </p><br /></div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-7211410289201509742008-11-30T14:16:00.000-04:002008-11-30T15:03:57.107-04:00Heart of GoldI assume that anyone who ever reads this blog is also a friend of mine and therefore probably knows that I'm no Neil Young fan. I recognize this as being kind of quirky. I sometimes go so far as to identify my indifference towards Neil Young as a character flaw. Because, like, <em>everyone </em>whose musical taste I respect is into Neil Young. It's not just his voice that irked me, though his voice was definitely a part of it. No, it was his actual songs. I thought they were boring; that they didn't - to steal Sean's preferred description - "swing." Admittedly, I never delved too deep, but I've also been exposed to more than just the hits. I'd listened to "On the Beach" and "Tonight's the Night" and "Harvest" in their <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">entirety</span>, in someones vain attempt to convert me. And I didn't hate Neil Young's music. I wouldn't get up and leave like I would with The Doors or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Soundgarden</span> or Joan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">frickin</span>' Baez. I just felt pretty <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">meh</span> about the guy. I did like the songs "The Needle and the Damage Done" and "Thrasher," though. That's as much as I would give.<br /><br />I nevertheless spent $75 to see Neil Young play at the Halifax Metro Centre last night. I went for the opening band, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Wilco</span>, really, but I did indeed stay for Neil Young, and a lot of his set was pretty boring, but a lot of it was pretty magical, too. I don't really want to write a concert review here; I just want to talk about my reception of "Heart of Gold."<br /><br />I bet I've heard "Heart of Gold" like five hundred times. On car stereos, in shopping malls, at friend's houses, in pubs, at open mic. nights. It's one of the first songs I ever learned how to play on the guitar. But last night, watching Neil Young play this song on stage, it was like I had never heard it before. I was blown away. I was reminded of hearing Johnny Cash's version, on the last of the American Recordings, of Ian and Sylvia Tyson's "Four Strong Winds." I couldn't shut up about what an amazing song that was. Like it was something new. For some reason, "Heart of Gold" finally hit me last night, in its simple message and phrasing, in the way Neil Young sang over the chords he played on his acoustic guitar. I even got his voice. What an earnest, simple, beautiful song. I love it.<br /><br /><br /><div align="center">Heart of Gold - Neil Young</div><div align="center"> </div><div align="center">I want to live,I want to give</div><div align="center">I've been a miner for a heart of gold.</div><div align="center">It's these expressions I never give</div><div align="center">That keep me searching for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">And I'm getting old.</div><div align="center">Keeps me searching for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">And I'm getting old.</div><div align="center">I've been to Hollywood, I've been to Redwood,</div><div align="center">I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">I've been in my mind, its such a fine line</div><div align="center">That keeps me searching for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">And I'm getting old.</div><div align="center">Keeps me searching for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">And Im getting old.</div><div align="center">Keep me searching for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">You keep me searching for a heart of gold</div><div align="center">And Im getting old.</div><div align="center">I've been a miner for a heart of gold.<br /><br /></div><div align="center"> </div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2320098871161644279.post-49194692952652519232008-11-28T00:42:00.000-04:002008-11-28T12:51:46.450-04:00The Emperor's New ClothesSinead O'Connor's incredibly moving, enduringly affecting album <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got </span>was released in 1990, during my first year of high school. Most of the songs on this album are about relationships, and while I had no real idea about relationships then, I was certainly obsessed with having one, and with the boys I dreamed about having ones with. Crushes in high school seemed to hit harder than any that I've experienced since. I guess because even friendships were shallower then - or more innocent, to be kinder. I didn't have any experience with real intimacy, and I didn't have the weight of a large and confusing and multifaceted history or world view that I needed empathetic ears and honest dialogue for. I was just fourteen. By the time I started to recognize the difference between actual friendships and people I had fun hanging out with I'd learned to make these distinctions because I'd been let down, misled, or just plain wrong about the people I imagined I knew. So crushes these days, while fun and I think necessary, are also comparatively very fleeting. They never carry that kind of investment, because that kind of investment just doesn't make any sense. First crushes, first hurts; there was no barometer.<br /><br />I honestly didn't understand the song "The Emperor's New Clothes." It was the line "How could I possibly know what I want when I was only 21?" that I ran into like a brick wall. I didn't understand what she meant, because 21 seemed so impossibly old, and I figured that I already knew what <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">I </span>wanted, at fourteen.<br /><br />In my canvas World Famous backpack, along with my NoteTote and my Beaver Canoe pencil case, I carried years and years of ridicule into Martingrove Collegiate. In middle school, my classmates would spread my germs and cross their fingers as I walked down the hall. On most afternoons as I walked home from school, the houses on Anglesey boulevard looked blurry through tears that I could never hold back, no matter how hard I tried. I went to Martingrove because nobody I knew from middle school was going there, and I started going by my full name, Amelia, shedding the shortened "Amy" I had been called up until that point. I bought bright purple Converse sneakers and I joined the drama club and the choir and I went to dances and I talked loudly, and people thought that I was fun and open.<br /><br />It strikes me now that I was incredibly lucky to have been received as I was. I could have been devastated. It seems<span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"> insane </span>that I tried so hard to be known, to meet people, when all of the people I used to know just called me cruel names and left me to eat lunch alone. I took everyone at face value. I didn't even recognize that people lied about stuff. I was so blissfully innocent in grade nine.<br /><br />I guess high school is probably like that for a lot of people, if not most people - a training ground for dealing with other human beings. I thought I had a best friend. I thought I was in love. I thought I knew what I wanted.<br /><br />It makes all kinds of sense that I was moved, along with my peers, by Sinead O'Connor's cover of Prince's "Nothing Compares 2 U," sitting on the bleachers in the gymnasium at 8 o'clock on a Friday night, watching the boy I wanted to be dancing with as he danced with someone else.<br /><br />It took a few more years before I connected to "Emperor's New Clothes." I eventually required more reasons for wanting things and people in my life, and for wanting things and people out of it. Of course this song is explicitly about the speaker's experience of enduring other people's reactions to her pregnancy. It's also one of the most empowering songs I can think of. It's so bold and bare and honest and despite the assertive declarations there is, too, the "I would return to nothing without you." Everything is there, and no, at fourteen, despite my purple sneakers and my brand new school I couldn't for the life of me understand how someone so old just couldn't have it together. And when I hear this song, I can <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">remember</span> that confused reception. I know exactly how that felt. Two decades ago.<br /><br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center">The Emperor's New Clothes - Sinead O'Connor<br /><br />It seems like years since you held the baby<br />While I wrecked the bedroom<br />You said it was dangerous after Sunday<br />And I knew you loved me<br />He thinks I just became famous<br />And that's what messed me up<br />But he's wrong<br />How could I possibly know what I want<br />When I was only twenty-one?<br />And there's millions of people<br />To offer advice and say how I should be<br />But they're twisted<br />And they will never be any influence on me<br />But you will always be<br />You will always be<br />If I treated you mean<br />I really didn't mean to<br />But you know how it is<br />And how a pregnancy can change you<br />I see plenty of clothes that I like<br />But I won't go anywhere nice for a while<br />All I want to do is just sit here<br />And write it all down and rest for a while<br />I can't bear to be in another city<br />One where you are not<br />I would return to nothing without you<br />If I'm your girlfriend or not<br />Maybe I was mean<br />But I really don't think so<br />You asked if I'm scared<br />And I said so<br />Everyone can see what's going on<br />They laugh `cause they know they're untouchable<br />Not because what I said was wrong<br />Whatever it may bring<br />I will live by my own policies<br />I will sleep with a clear conscience<br />I will sleep in peace<br />Maybe it sounds mean<br />But I really don't think so<br />You asked for the truth and I told you<br />Through their own words<br />They will be exposed<br />They've got a severe case of<br />The emperor's new clothes<br />The emperor's new clothes<br />The emperor's new clothes </div>Amelia Chesterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15463411526126166470noreply@blogger.com0