it's not you, it's me, edmonton.

my sense of timing is awful. yesterday the presentation flew by. right now i'm writing this because i'm avoiding confronting writing a late and major paper. i started elementary school a year later than most students. i took a year off university. and now i'm taking a year longer than the usual amount of four years. i've passed by collisions that must have happened only seconds ahead of me.

so here's my belated letter to edmonton. coming a little too late maybe. i should have done this ages ago.

it's not you, it's me, edmonton. it's time we both came to terms with the way this relationship is going. we've just become comfortable with each other. you're not afraid to fart around me and i stopped wearing make up around you. we've let each other go. you're comfortable. i'm comfortable. we no longer challenge each other. 

i know all your secrets and dirty bits, all your shames and loves. i know all about that weird tick you get during the spring when suddenly a lot of snow falls. some of your lovable flaws have grown on me, others have started to infuriate me. for example, can we please stop talking about the weather? i know, i know, it's your thing. but spare at least this one person from the relentless and FASCINATING observations that yes, it's warms, and yes, it's cold, and yes, that sure was one heck of a downpour. but i do still love your summer nighttime blush when you show your true colors and the way you don't judge me when i do stupid things, like get trashed and sleep around. but that's part of that "comfortable" thing i mentioned before. sometimes i want you to question me and hold me responsible.

sometimes, when i get away from you and i'm alone or with some other city, i wonder if maybe i just like these things about you because i've gotten used to them and it's nice to have someplace to return to. i sometimes really crave the risk of that chicago guy, or the unabashed flirting of that rome guy, or that exotic phnom penh guy. i know, it must make you jealous to hear this and i bet you wonder why i would bother with some of them. but i'm still young. and excited. but in some ways i think i'm more mature than you.

i don't want us to part on bad terms but these are my honest thoughts (i figured you would ask). you're still such a boy. you have potential and a bright future and i love your energy but i need someone who's a little more mature if i'm going to get into a serious relationship.

we've had a lot of fun and i'll never forget the good times we had. even the bad ones. and especially the ones we thought were bad until we realized they were the best.

but i have to move on because i've changed. or maybe i stayed the same. i'm not sure, but i know it's time.

i'm going to move in with my ex-boyfriend for a bit until i decide what to do next and where i should establish myself. don't worry, we're not resuming our relationship. his sandy hair and blue eyes are not enough to woo me back, he was pretty violent and unpredictable. don't get jealous. it's only for a bit and only for convenience. i know you'll worry and i know you'll miss me. we'll stay in touch because, well, my parents really like you and so do my friends (even though i know you think they say mean things behind your back). maybe we'll even get back together but i don't want to give you false hope or lead you on anymore.

i really wish you all the best, edmonton. 

everything is different but nothing has changed

much like the eerie feeling of coming back into your home after a long trip everything looks different. once, coming back in the middle of the night after two weeks when i was not expected, i walked into my room and made a mental note to tell my mom not to clean it again. but my room was untouched. the lines in the hardwood seemed exaggerated and every object looked like it was oriented by a right angle. right angles are civilized human inventions.

i guess it's the things you think you know best that reveal themselves as the least recognized.

the five elements that i have recognized even though i was already aware of them, without wanting to sound too kitschy, are the four uncivilized elements: water, fire, earth, and air. stick around til the end to see if i make any fifth element allusions by saying the fifth is love.

water. edmonton's water. we have so much water. the river, the snow, the ice, the moody rains, the many aquifers deep underground the periphery of the city.

earth. sand and clay and gravel that we'll never be rid of no matter how much we clean and brush and sweep.

fire. the sun, whose depressions haunts our half-years.

and the air. the big sky. the open sky. the pregnant sky. the blue, the grey, the white, the pink, the orange sky. sky sky sky sky sky. our magpie dominated sky, relics of our dinosaur past. our menopausal sky. the sky whose small changes we watch like the attentive, slightly neurotic, husband of a critical yet silent wife.

this is clearly different from the elements we've been discussing in terms of mythic power. the power of these objects to convey and remind us of our experience is what makes them important, but they're only emblems, totems, rooted in their physicality. all of it is passing and transient and no object travels with you once you die. or, more specifically, we're transient. much more so than the books i scar with barcodes at work. 1875. 1852. 1829 was the oldest so far.

memory. is the fifth element. ok, so it's close to love. love is rooted in memory. i know, i know, this is about as dangerously cheesy as cheetos, but run with it for a second.

memory is important to every city. why do rome and paris have to have the monopoly on this idea? without our memory, without our experiences, the city would be empty concrete and plywood shells without the memories we've given them. why do so many people come back? and why do so many find it hard to leave? because the memories we have of edmonton are personal. they haven't had time to become globally collective. we have a vested interest in the privacy of these memories. they're not about revolutions or bloodbaths or kings or celebrities, they're about the time my friend fell and dragged her boyfriend down who in turn brought down someone else with him on the ice in front of the garneau pub. they're about the many times me and my best friend drove around in the "love wagon" blasting our friend's recording of disturbed gibberish and pretend picking up pedestrians. they're about the time i got high sitting in a car seat on top of a mud hill with something like a boyfriend. watching the silent thunder of an approaching storm. they're about the time we got so angry about the rain on the ferris wheel at k-days that we reached a moment of exhilaration, said "fuck this!", and started jumping in the puddles once we got off--marking one of our fondest memories. one carny shouted at us, with a smile, "ARE YOU CRAZY?!" "YES!" we shouted back. they're about the first snow fall that you watch under the morbid glow of the orange lights.

trevor anderson said that he and his friend promised to never show edmonton in the summer. even if he did, no one would ever believe him. our summers, our memories, our loves, they're too personal for the rest of the world to fully understand. we share chuckles and glances, a secret code, that the world outside our winter gates won't fully comprehend.

what else is there to say about edmonton? it's already been said by another edmontonian.