it's been a while since i've spent some time with my sis. we often get coffee together (or used to until school started this year) and as the caffeine enters the blood stream we become philosophers and poets and rebels bouncing ideas off of each other about art, about ideas, about life, about the future. then we go home and continue doing the things we said we had to change to be more complete individuals. this city just isn't good enough for us to be amazing.
last night i called home so someone would pick me up from the bus station. she told me she was going shopping and if i wanted to come. hungry and tired and wired, of course i said yes because we would have to have coffee. i didn't know how long we'd be but who cared, i was down for whatever.
she's going to buenos aries tomorrow where fruit is just ripening in the fall. am i jealous? certainly. but i realized as we were talking about living elsewhere (common topic) and travelling that we're tethered here. we're tethered because we haven't fully accepted edmonton. like after any tragedy where you have to come to peace with the situation to be able to move on. regarded as a necessary difficult time that developed you as a person.
ok.
done.
because of this class i've started to like edmonton. the winter especially. why fight against something which is fact, why endlessly struggle, why not adapt? "be like the water," says bruce lee. frozen water maybe. be like the snow. fall gently on the whitest of the highest of the city's towers. enter the crevices of the alleys, each back lawn, and graze the balconies of apartments. be carried along the lrt and bus routes by the exchange of students and businessmen. then melt into rivulets, into streams, into the rapids gushing into the river. then pelt the city with spasms of rain and hail in the summer. in the fall, cry. "autumn's here / it's time to cry now" sings hawksley workman.
i think i have learned how to walk and see a city. starting in edmonton of course. my perspective is changing and as i've still decided to go elsewhere after graduating i think that i will only be ready to leave if i feel like i've understood edmonton and seen it from its many monochromatic grey angles.
*
pretty hard (or easier?) to continue writing warm fuzzy things about edmonton after watching an hour of reports about the earthquake and tsunami in japan. edmonton, rejoice, for you are situated on a 668m elevated plateau!
TOTALLY agree with what you've wrote. I still plan on leaving this city - sorry Edmonton - because it's just not for me. I'm a creature of the sun. BUT, like you, I feel like I'll never really be able to leave until I understand it. I think this class is definitely helping most of us do just that.
ReplyDeletewe're tethered because we haven't fully accepted edmonton.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree. I think I need to learn to see Edmonton not as an anchor but as a harbour, a place to return to. I'm not sure where these nautical metaphors are coming from; anyway I love the way you've used the idea of water, an element characterised by transition and change. A theme I see unfolding as I read peoples' blog posts: collectively, our resistance to Edmonton is melting. Even if most of us haven't done anything with that yet, the possibility is there, and we will.
Be like the snow: good advice. Thank you.
ReplyDelete@Rita: you're right about a resistance to Edmonton - that's what a lot of people have. Why? Do people have similar resistances to all cities?