Damm

It is 
late in the summer of
cottonwood and Estrella,

in our hair, in our houses,
spanish beer for the masses
it is

early in the summer
of
old whiskey, that shit doesn’t spoil does it? 
in our hands, in our shelves,
barter alcohol for favors from friends, 

It is
late in the evening of
bicycles and pizza orders,
working one hour past necessary,
people are so selfish these days, 

isn’t it
time we reconciled?
I’m not that mean a person
so why the silence?

it is
not possible to find rest in love,
repose in contentment, in simple admiration,
it is not possible to be enamored
without being overwhelmed,

settling is suitable, I’ll take it,
a quiet reservation to being half at home
and restless.

     call it divine discontentment if you will, 
     not making the story too easy to 
     see the holes and disregard it as poor fiction, 
     have a hard story and its harder to disprove,

it is 
too late to speak of
love,

too late in the night or
too early in the morning,
have to put aside the books and
intimacies and rest up- I have to work tomorrow.

my barista years

I worked at a coffeeplace across the street from my house for about 5 months last year. In my short time there I invented/perfected a few drinks, and to battle my incessant fear that they will be lost forever if i get hit by a bus or eaten by a wolf I would like to share them with the world. So here they are:

The Sunshine Coast

- 1 oz vanilla syrup (1 1/2 for medium, 2 for large)
- chamomile tea
- steamed milk, or milk substitute

1) fill cup one quarter full of water and steep tea,
2) while tea is steeping mix milk and vanilla and steam to precisely 150 degrees, ensuring a quarter cup of foam (Vary syrup measurements according to taste preference),
3) pour milk over tea and enjoy. 

The Kits Beach

- Ginger Twist tea
- 1 oz vanilla syrup (1.5 for medium, 2 for large)
- 1/4 oz peppermint syrup (1/2 oz for medium and large)
- milk, or milk substitute

Follow same method of preparation as the Sunshine Coast. 

The Burrard Street Bridge

- 2 shots espresso (3 for medium, 4 for large) 
- 1 oz chocolate syrup (1.5 for medium, 2 for large)
- 1/2 oz peppermint or hazelnut syrup
-  milk, or milk substitute

Follow the method of making a standard latte (Run shots, steam milk with syrup and chocolate to precisely 150 degree, pour milk over espresso shot. Pretty simple). Vary syrup measurements according to taste preference. 

The Old Montreal

- 2 shots red espresso (3 for medium, 4 for large) 
- 1 oz maple flavored syrup (1.5 for medium, 2 for large)
- soy milk, almond milk, or hemp milk

Follow same method as a latte, substituting roobios mix for coffee espresso. I prefer using a non-dairy milk for this recipe, as it compliments the red espresso quite wonderfully.  

27

A bit of a quiet birthday I have to say. In the past my birthdays have been spent traveling or hiking, outside the house, but the last 5 or years have been an exception. Not much traveling, not as much of a sense of the day being set aside as sacred for reflection. Last year I was busy working all day, the year before I was busy cooking all day. This year I’ll be pretty busy organizing a concert, which will keep me occupied until about 12 am I imagine. I turned 17, 18, and 19 on a bus on an annual youth retreat to Kamloops, having experiences that made the days feel endless and full of promise.

Concerts are enjoyable to organize, though they have a certain exhausting quality when I’m organizing them all myself (its even come to the point where I can’t attend a concert without feeling a bit anxious, like I should be somehow involved with the planning process). I’ll take it though, working on a concert is exponentially better than taking pizza calls for selfish Canadians on my birthday.

Maybe (maybe) this time next year I’ll be traveling- back to Calgary then home again. Nothing too bold unless I’m feeling more adventurous by then. I can’t say I enjoy my habit of being aloof on a day I should be taking in, attempting to create substantial memories a part of its essence. “Ah yes, I was traveling in [city] when I turned 27”.  Nothing like that this year. 

I did stumble across a “walk away from homophobia” rally happening on South Fraser yesterday- a group of kids and young adults from a local society gathering with rainbow flags to express their desire for basic equality. I asked if anyone had an extra flag and I joined in, taking careful note of the faces of drivers passing by- an equal mix of indifference and acceptance, with some drivers showing encouraging support while most others drove by stonefaced. All in all a worthwhile addition to my story, a blessing in the truest sense of the word.

My birthday present to myself this year is two bird tattoos on my wrists. That and free admission to a concert… and Toms. 

Trudeau

so your tattoos have healed nicely
to give way to
new wineskins, 
we’ll celebrate with a wedding feast,

     birds and birds and
     seven nautical stars,
     a sailing ship to see if
     you’ll end up traveling,
     a rose with a scroll with your
     daughter’s name,
     an ivy branch and a sparrow,

they’re a lazy bird I was warned
but I won’t be leaving soon.

and she said it herself,
        she’s best in spring, not so seasonally upset,   
the winter is fine but its not
good for the soul,
save your love for her for June,

save your love for her for sometime
this time next year,
she’ll be awash with paints
and canvas in the meantime.

over our heads, over our heads

I’ve set up shop in the guerilla garden next to my house, the empty lot that used to be the offices for a taxi company before the building collapsed, leaving the space abandoned. Over a period of two summers the otherwise abandoned lot is taking the shape of a community garden with planting boxes and a makeshift rock path. A few of the garden fixtures are made out discarded bricks from the Clayburn factory, others are scrap pieces of furniture re-appropriated from junk piles in the hills behind… what’s that street called? The one that leads into the Mission Highway, with the tall blocky looking building that used to look haunted but now looks pristine? The street with a large concrete field, a small part of which was recently used to build offices for a Corrections agency? Anyway, there are hills behind there with piles of old collected furniture, some of which are now decorating the garden (I can’t say I particularly like any of the street names in Abbotsford, at least not enough to remember half of them). 

It is just breezy enough to relax in the the beach chair I picked up on a thrifting adventure, complete with a cup holder to house mint tea picked and dried from a patch in the garden last year. There’s no shame in making the tea extra strong, as the mint patch was overgrown enough last year and is already off to a strong start again. It’s a bit of a weed, which is fine with me because I’ll have a few years worth of mint to look forward to. 

I’m actually lucky because a pole near the garden has an outlet, and the country decor shop that borders the garden has an internet connection stronger than in my own room, which is almost too inviting. I’d be a fool not to plug in and journal on sunny days this summer. 

I think the last time I was able to sit outside and journal was back when I was living in Clearbrook in a second floor townhouse with a covered deck. It’s been about two years now since I moved downtown. Before I’d come home every day after work around 5pm and sit around until 8 or 9, all hours of the night, only interrupting my journaling to make coffee or open bottles of sleemans honey brown or cans of holsten malbock. 

Living in a townhouse was a brilliant atmosphere for writing songs and poetry, as all the friends who came through that place had some intimate connection with music. Marriage and career has disconnected the community, though the friendships have a pretty eternal quality. 

I’m just now starting to try to take myself seriously when it comes to music, trying to overcome my incredible reluctance and lack of confidence to piece together songs. I love reading and writing poetry, though I feel I need to write at least a few songs one of these days. 

All this city needs needs a sustainable venue, with the central goal of putting on shows as its reason for existing, and I might feel slightly more at home. Of course for that to exist there needs to also be a segment of the population who will put aside other plans to commit to seeing shows in their own city on a regular basis, even if it means seeing a band they’ve never heard of or don’t particularly like. It would be nice to see the valley become known as a go-to place for bands to mark on tour itineraries, a bridge between the gap from Kelowna to Vancouver. All in due time I guess. 

ninth avenue reverie

The other night I was hanging out with Scott in the kitchen around 11pm, waiting for my laundry to get done. The doorbell rang and Scott instinctively called “not it”, to which I replied “aw, damnit scott!” (in a joking manor of course). 

I strode down to our front door and a met a homeless man I didn’t recognize. He said something to the respect of “aah good, you have to call the police on me, I’m drunk and I was wandering in traffic, I could hurt someone”. He talked the entire time, but these were the key words I picked up initially.  

It took about 15 minutes of hanging out patiently deciding what to do. My phone had a low battery and was about to shut down, so I considered asking one of the characters sleazing outside the Air Fare if they could make a call. One of the characters was passing by and Chris (I managed to figure out the homeless man’s name was Chris somewhere in his 15 minutes of talking to himself) stepped out of the doorway and said “hey man, could you help me with something”, and without thinking the guy nonchalantly snubbed Chris saying “no man, I can’t help you at all” before meeting up with a group of friends. Fuck sakes. 

I decided to make the call, and a patrol car came by another 15 or so minutes later to pick Chris up. For some reason the most memorable part of this exchange was seeing the Air Fare character’s response to an obviously drunk person. Society had somehow managed to produce two self damaging people, both with varied degrees of passivity, then arrange a chance meeting of the two. Chris asked for help in a drunken state, passively because he could not possibly remember even asking for help, let alone who decided to help. Likewise Air Fare character was passive in refusing to allow anyone else’s trouble into his life. He also won’t be able to remember me or Chris because he was too caught up in his own shit to acknowledge either of us as human. 

What was my role in this situation? Could I be perceived as equally passive myself? I was choosing to passively direct Chris in a direction away from me, not necessarily ”passing the buck” but just leading Chris into someone else’s responsibility. It could have been worse, I could have shut the door in his face with a snide “no man, I can’t help you at all”, but I have the unique “blessing” of a rather unforgiving conscience. 

For a long time I believed the best way to navigate through a poverty stricken street was to be grey. Keep your words simple, don’t look anyone in the eye, if someone asks for change just say no, if they ask for help don’t say anything at all. It’s the best way to avoid conflict, and the most convenient way to go about my day unhindered. Afterwards just say a short prayer asking God to send people more qualified to help the homeless to the street.

After all, I had a couple job interviews with charities working with the homeless and they didn’t hire me, with means I must not be qualified, which means I must not get involved, which means I must be grey and ignore the homeless and let others more qualified help them. I’d be doing more damage than good anyway. 

I did this for a while before developing a nagging sense that this wasn’t right, that I couldn’t continue writing myself off as unqualified every time I came into contact with a homeless person. The least I could do is have a conversation, even say hello to someone. Being a stone hearted person who callously ignores the simple humanity of others wasn’t the original goal, but ultimately this was who I was becoming. I was growing into an adult with only a sparing amount of maturity, almost none to speak of. 

The least I can still do is stop and listen to a person who is asking me a question. 

a fine consumer

there’s no new insight to talk
about today-
there are no new ideas,

 a different shop may be uncomfortable, 
a different drink unpredictable,
just remain sternly in routine,
react violently if the order is challenged slightly

and everything will be fine.  

this marriage is getting too real,
time to try another.

prone to wander

I started working at a breakfast take out in downtown Abbotsford, sort of. I only really get paid (under the table) for two days a week. The other 5 days I go in are volunteer. I’ve been there almost every day since I was turned down for the job I applied for. It turns out, by the way, that not recieving the job I wanted was actually a very good thing- now I can attend most of the weddings, concerts, and artsy retreats I want to this summer without having to worry about how to properly book time off.

Besides that I’m also starting to work towards having a consistent schedule again- a beautiful thing I chose to sabotage just before Christmas by accepting a job at BC Hydro, which required me to wake up, bike 4km, walk all day to strange addresses to search for meters, bike home another 4km, walk to the call centre and take calls until 9pm, then go home. It payed well but I wasn’t a good situation overall. 

So thats that. My hope now (besides hoping I don’t get fired from the call centre) is that a steady work schedule will allow me free time to start reading again, writing again, using free hours here and there to sit outside in my house’s impromptu garden. Its been two years since I moved downtown, and in that time I’ve only written a few poems, and I’ve only read a hand full of books. I’ve bought more books than I’ve read. 

I’m also starting up a radio show and getting tattoos in the first week or so of May. We’ll see how that goes. 

In the back of my mind I have a nagging sense of needing to put my family in more of a central place of my thoughts. As it stands my need to reconcile with being sad all the time has made my own life, my own interests and health, the only thing I ever think about. Even falling in love is a selfish act for me- when I’m interested in someone I think more about fulfilling my own need to be loved rather than wanting to offer love to another person (or something like that. even after 27 years of living I can’t figure out why anyone falls in love, what the basic reasoning and purpose is. Does anyone know? ). 

I want to travel more for the sake of seeing my family. I want to earnestly care about how my parents, brothers and sister are doing. Out of necessity, in my need to put together some sense of home to grasp on to, being present for my family has been low on my priority list. 

Another hope I have is that I don’t spend my entire adult life only seeing my family members once every 6 years or so. I want to build a life where I can devote a least a month traveling to several parts of Canada to see everyone. To Calgary, to Prince George, to Vancouver Island, to Washington.

It might get tiring, but I have to do something. A family separated into 5 different cities presents unique challenges. 

in vancouver, at the seawall

She’s dating a friend,
Making out in Vancouver
At the seawall, 

a stroll in the woods, a skytrain ride to
fixed gear bicycles.  

She’s writing about driving, 
Backing
Vocals with a band, 

She’s taking classes,
Coming to my show so 
We can share casual conversation,

And she wont be home until Sunday,
She’s traveling in Berlin.

in summary

I spent a few hours going over the poems I’ve written in the past year. There was maybe 1/3 that I found salvageable (maybe 20 or so poems). And of course of those I only feel comfortable about openly sharing one or two of them in public. There were also a few on the dark and surreal side that I must have written during some horrible coffee crash. Didn’t bother submitting any of them to any journals this year, as trying to do so in the past has felt more demeaning and discouraging instead of affirming or even inviting.  

In any case, here’s a tally of a few of my writings from the past 2 years: 

5 1/2 about springtime in Abbotsford,

5 1/2 about a rather trying friendship (which I was rather hoping would turn romantic, for lack of a better word),  

1 about a friendship that did turn into holding hands and kissing (it ended abruptly, though that part is not documented), 

6 1/2 about weddings and wedding culture,

10+ about unfairly dehumanizing drivers who speed past me on dangerous fucking roads (I digress. these were the majority of poems I deemed unsharable), 

1 creepy poem that refers to the devil less as horns and fiery pitchforks  and more as an inviting gentleman with comfortable attire,

3+ detailed accounts of biking adventures, including subtle hints towards flings, which have never in reality occurred (fabricated memoirs a la James Frey pretty much),

1 poem expressing my frustration at writing poems about adventures I wish I could have instead of having actual adventures to write about,

1/2 a poem about fixed gear bicycles, 1 about a farmers market, 1 about Christmas, and 3 about realizing the impossibility of translating my Bachelor of Arts into employment,

2 poems about acting which I feel are horribly invalid because I’ve never acted (not very well at least) and 2 about being homeless (which are invalid because I can’t be bothered to actually befriend the homeless), 

1 poem about disney princesses,

and a few about me feeling like I can’t be taken seriously (which is probably my own fault). 

it’s fine

So I didn’t get the job I was hoping for. Instead I’ve started volunteering every morning at a modestly popular take-out eatery just outside my house. This being a place well known to local residents I feel I’m closer and closer to becoming a “lifer” in Abbotsford- that is, a person well rooted in a city despite having great reservations and discontent towards the said city. On the bright side I heard, rather indirectly, that a good friend of mine was hired, which is better in the long run. Alright, already, we’ll all float on. 

It probably isn’t a good idea to equate starting my career with coming home itself. Then again, is it right to have any high expectations at all? I’ve had this bad habit for the past couple years- I develop great expectations, and only after they fall through do I realize it is better not to “get my hopes up”. I don’t get it to be honest, I don’t know how this is supposed to work. 

I know having a sense of entitlement is not what I want to do (the self-centred type of thinking that states “I deserve a career because I worked hard and spent all my money to get a degree). What I’m struggling to understand is if I’m even allowed to hope, and if so how I am allowed to hope. When I started this year I was hoping to start a career. When I started school I was hoping to graduate without debt. Am I allowed to hope, and if so where can I safely place my hope? 

I know hope is a real thing, and that I should probably have it, though having my own unfair expectations about how life should go come to pieces so often casts doubt on the validity on such hope. I defend my sense of hope, though I myself have my doubts. 

Hope is foolish, fine, but I’m not going to abandon it entirely because I can’t understand it. Something has to give. 

More waiting, more trying, but its fine. I still have a home, and I’m still loved (the evidence to support this theory is undeniable, as much as I’m reluctant to accept it with open arms).

shared accommodation

my lord,
could we make this spring more
like a wedding and less like dating?

it was fun last year but now I’m tired,
it was purposeful but now I’m lazy, 
time to trade the sketchy basements for apartments and
houses, for acreage and family, 

a second floor suite in the city or
shared accommodation,
so long as I can still
see my favorite acquaintances.

at events we’re at couples tables 
with grown-up conversation,
not childish, not young anymore
but are we still youthful? 

who cares anyway, who’s counting?

my lord,
could we make this spring
new and refreshing? even more so
now that we’re supposedly wiser with experience? 

I won’t let the night frighten me as
I have to work tomorrow.  

come for me, comfort me

I decided to quit my job with hydro this past week, citing my wrecked foot as the main reason. It’s looking like a good possibility that my pizza call centre job will sending me on my way by the end of the month, due to making a few too many errors. Balancing two jobs and trying to stay consistent with both was much more difficult than I had planned, but I’ve learned some lessons- 1) try to have only one job with consistent hours, 2) Don’t commute to work on a bicycle if said work is located via an industrial park road with no shoulder, 3) Don’t move to Mission or Aldergrove unless you are willing to buy an unnecessarily large gate to ward off the dangers of common society. 

I’m holding out for a job closer to my career now- it’s like a heaviness in the chest demanding a swift return home, no matter how difficult or embarrassing that may be. My thoughts always come back to the image of the prodigal son, defeated and pretty desperate. I haven’t reached the level of utter defeat or desperation just yet, but I’m pretty close. 

So my utterly selfish prayer from this past week, my mantra if you will, has been “I need to come home”- come home in the vocational sense. I really want to start a job this year that is appropriate to my career, and I sense that doing so would be a few small steps towards calling the valley home (calling anywhere home really). 

My chosen career is youth work in general, mentoring in particular. Options for starting up my career are pretty limited here (as they would be in any small city anywhere in Canada) but I am working out an application for a local drop in/transitional housing centre, again hoping for the best. If I don’t get hired there I’ll at least look into volunteering. 

In the search for home you do what you can. Sometimes it is a matter of waiting patiently on the lord, other times it is wrestling through the night demanding a blessing- a blessing not in the North American sense of wealth or security, but in the biblical sense.

There is a story in the Old Testament of a chap named Jacob who wrestled with a spiritual figure (with some translators speculating that this was God in physical form), and Jacob refused to stop fighting until the figure blessed him. Ok fine, the figure said, before reaching out and breaking Jacob’s hip. Throughout his life Jacob was a man who ran away from conflicts as they arose, literally, so the breaking of his hip effectively ended his running away. The blessing of being redemptively broken- a clever and effective blessing, incredibly human yet deeply spiritual at the same time.

You would think being blessed would simply be a matter of pulling you away from life’s difficulties but, biblically speaking, blessing leading us more towards and through difficulty is a much more accurate interpretation. 

Because I’m a glutton for a challenging series of circumstances, as opposed to a leisurely and utterly unpoetic coast through life, these are the sort blessings I pursue (sometimes intentionally, other times incidentally). Nothing specific, nothing for my own personal gain or security, but simply for the sake of the story I’m taking part in. A character unchallenged has no character at all, as they say. 

dishonesty

I’ve had lying in
my back pocket for some time-
an ace in the hole as it were
in case I sense I’m losing arguments,

if it is not quitting I do
best it has to be
saying I’m doing well with a straight face.  

Strangely I still feel guilty for stealing. 

started as lovers, don’t know where it’s going to end

I somehow have this strange idea in my head that this summer will be better than right now, and the few decent poems I’ll somehow manage to write will be worth waiting to compile a small book for. I am still indeed hoping and waiting to write a few more good poems before I compile another book, as emerging from two years of writing with only a handful of poems I’m not ashamed to share with people seems a bit unfortunate.

Also I’m considering putting in my two weeks notice for my pizza job this week and applying for a youth centre. 

Here’s hoping. 

Sincerely,

Adam.