It was a warm August afternoon along the shoreline in Vancouver and the father strolled along the seashore with his wife and children. It didn’t matter that their home was far, far away. Home was where the family was. The eldest, a boy, wanted some popcorn so they stopped and the father let go of his need to control his middle aging weight and joined in. The mother kept track of the youngest who was barely a year old. ...
I’m looking for my voice. It might be under the couch but I feel too stiff to bend down and look under there. It might be in a glass, but I am too worn down from tipping it. It might be on my fork but all I can sense is anticipation. It might be in a new pair of headphones but then I am mute. It might be in a young beauty but then I would have lost all of mine. ...
The Father is looking for his phone and feeling a little bit disoriented. Or maybe it is the fact that he is looking for his phone that makes him feel disoriented. He never has to look for his phone, it is always with him. He’s in an excited, calm, refreshing, nervous, anxious mood as he calls out to his kids “wait for me, I need to find my phone”. The kids don’t really know what is going on. To kids, things are not evaluated at the “good”, “bad”, “normal”, “not normal” way that they will eventually think of things as adults. This is not to say kid’s feelings are simple or less complicated. In fact, they are more complicated than the adults for they haven’t learned to shut down or funnel emotions yet. Emotions are raw and joyous and painful and numbing and exciting. It is the Father who is cut off from his emotions. He’s been cut off for some time. ...
She stands in front of the floor to ceiling window 30 floors above Beijing looking out across the city. She can see nothing. Another bad air day in a city that used to count blue sky days. She bends, sitting on the bed without needing to look. The bed sheets are ruffled and tossed about without care. She gets up, removes the sheets, and makes the bed. Sleep did not come easy that night, at least not at first. She had the trappings of a luxurious life at her fingertips and a man that she was, well, interested in. Everything should be happy. Everything should be on track. She had come so far from her home town. She had come so far from her college days. She had come so far from everyone doubting her and telling her she wasn’t smart enough. Wasn’t tall enough. Wasn’t pretty enough. Wasn’t good enough. But here she was and not trapped in some unloving marriage to a man only a parent could love. She was pretty enough, she was tall enough, she was pretty enough. She deserved this. But she wasn’t happy and she could not figure out why. Not being happy didn’t quite capture it. She was plenty happy a lot of the time. It was those other times. Those times when she felt anxious inside not knowing what to do with herself. When she couldn’t relax. When shopping or the man or a good book or a good meal was met with indifference. It was those times that made her know she was not happy. ...
It is not the past nor the future that prevents me from living in the moment. It is the moment itself which I flee. I am listening to Dido’s new album while my daughter is drawing at the park. This will may be the last weekend until April where we are at the park drawing as winter is about set in. In five months she won’t be the same five year old she is now and these moments of her drawing may be gone. But I’m not thinking about that. I’m trying just to focus on the lyrics of the songs, a stanza of which really struck me this morning. “I can walk, with no end, nothing hurts, nothings pain. Nothings missed, no ones gone, moved away, nothings wrong.” ...
He is in Singapore sitting in one of those uncomfortable Starbucks wooden chairs and flipping through the Straight Times. The Straight Times is thick, like a Sunday Paper, even on weekdays. It has sections for News, Money, and Life. In the Life section he finds an article by a Times reporter who tried six different things to help her relax. The one he focuses on is mediation as it is something he’s thought about trying over the years and now with things the way they are he really needs something. Anything. He skims the paragraphs on meditation without absorbing the content and then his mind is onto the yoga relaxation approach. He snaps out of it and rereads the mediation section again and makes note of the two free apps the reporter mentions, Headspace and Calm. ...
I wake up and my mouth is dry and it takes me a moment to realize where I am. I am in a hotel, sleeping in a twin bed. Sleeping alone although not alone in the room. I get up and pee and brush my teeth. I slip on my running shorts, shoes, and brush deodorant on under my night shirt. Out the door of the hotel room I go. I walk on the side of the lobby the furthest from the reception desk since technically I am an uninvited guest. I am out into the morning sun as I force my legs to start a slight jog. The air is brisk with a hint of warmth. ...
I am sitting in Starbucks noticing my hands are shaking. I wonder when that started. I wonder why that started. My mind flies back in time. Back to the last time I laughed. I mean an actual uncontrolled laugh. Not a controlled, “I can see how that could be funny” laugh. It was 14 years ago. I was in a u-haul truck with my brother moving from my first life to my purgatory life. My other friend was at my soon to be old home waiting for me. He needed to use the restroom but could not get in until we got there and we were a good 10 minutes away. I could just see him hop side to side waiting for us trying to defer the urgency so that it didn’t become an urgent situation. And I lost it. Just busted up without a hint of control. For a second anyway. ...
Some middle age men hit the lottery with the whole midlife crisis thing. First, they don’t have a midlife crisis. In fact, midlife finds them confident in who they are. Midlife finds them understanding the true meaning of freedom, which is accept yourself and to be your true self. But this isn’t the lottery. The lottery comes when their wife’s own midlife crisis turns her into a super fit cougar. A super fit cougar who decides to get a boob job. Now, that’s hitting the midlife lottery. ...
I told him that he had it all wrong. You don’t need someone so bright that they can pull you out of your darkness. You need someone dark enough that they can see your light. Learn this now or learn this later. He learned this later and learned it the hard way. But at this point there wasn’t much I could do for him and his new search for a dark lover. Honestly, I thought I should be honest with him but where would that leave him but alone. Or with another broken cookie. ...