2001-06-09 - 11:30 p.m.
Listening to: Monkey Radio and "The Burbs" playing on CBC
I got a grande Guatemala Antigua at the closest Starbucks and bought a package of gum at the Petro. I buttoned up my denim dress/jacket and shoved a crumpled pack of Camel lights in my pocket, then headed down to the elbow of my street where a path divides the houses. I had just brought my books back to the library unsure if they were overdue or just on time. I didn't even ready any of them - I guess I just wasn't in the mood.
Last week we had about three days of rain and fog. That beautiful maritime weather seemed to have gotten lost here in the prairie; Mother Nature was misdirected. Now, a few days later, everything is so green. Nose Hill is no longer the dry dead yellow left over from last summer, the small patches of forest have filled out with rich green leaves, and there seems to be more birds chirping. Maybe I just haven't paid enough attention to my environment until now, but it feels like summer just krept up from nowhere. I don't remember ever being caught in between seasons; I don't remember watching anything change. It's as if I just woke up one morning and it was no longer winter. I wonder if nature is really that quick.
I ended up sitting on the grass that belts around the hill I live on, propping my coffee against my crossed legs and holding a cigarette delicately in my left hand so the smoke wouldn't taint my hair. You can see everything from that spot - the prairie that stretches outward like a patchwork quilt, the airport with it's arriving and departing planes, the golf courses off Country Hills Blvd, the evergrowing sea of houses, and the endless blue sky. I like being that high up and being able to see everything as a whole because it doesn't seem real. It's the distance in between my position and the horizon that drapes everything in this surreal haze making it appear more like a painting or a photograph than actual scenery.
I stayed there for a while, sipping my coffee until it got too cold to ingest. I watched a bird sing on a fence post behind me, paying more attention to the detailing of its beak and red feathered breast as the breeze blew softly. I started to think about all the things I've only seen once in my life so far, all the incidents that were so incredible and may never happen again. Like watching that car drive off the freeway when Austin, William and I were driving back to Goshen from Chicago over Christmas break. Or that one incredible sunset on Signal Hill that lasted for hours and bathed everything in crimson. Or that night a bunch of us went to Fort Amherst when the lighthouse beam was so clear we could follow it right out to the edge of the sea.
Sometimes my life really does feel like ficition.
There was a party tonight back home. It was a reunion of sorts; a gathering of old friends whom haven't seen one another since graduation. I wish I could have been there to see everyone again. To laugh and catch up on all their individual lives. To gossip with Bekah and Amanda about unimportant gossipy things. To drink more than I should and spend the remainder of the night sitting in front of Cabot Tower with my best friends. It's not too much longer though until I get to go home. Actually, it's less than two weeks now. Soon I'll be drinking coffee with Amanda and watching latenight DVD's with Bekah. I'll be spending afternoons at Hava Java hoping to run into people whose numbers I've forgotten. I'll be taking three hundred pictures a day then, and I'll be unable to contain my happiness.
Bekah was telling me the other night how silly I've been with believing that things have changed dramatically in the year that I've been gone. She told me that the people are still the same, their hair is just a little longer or a lot shorter. Maybe a year really doesn't do a whole lot to a person, I guess it takes longer - like four years - to really alter someone drastically.
Speaking of that, for some strange reason I got in contact with Ryan tonight. My curiousity was roused by boredom - I wanted to know what he's been up to. Over the last two/three years we've kept in sparse contact. We were inseperable in the later part of junior high and early high school. We had this intense boyfriend-girlfriend relationship that devoured both our lives completely for a moment in time. Now it's all behind us, pushed back so far that it doesn't even feel like it happened. It's a little sad that it's all been forgotten, how two people who meant the world to each other are strangers now. It makes me wonder if we really were all that to one another. Whenever we talk now it's awkward and distant. The conversation doesn't go much beyond "Hello" and "What's new?". I don't know, maybe it's meant to be that way - that's how relationships are supposed to evolve when they suddenly end.
I never did believe that whole "staying friends" shit, anyway.
When I go back in a few weeks, I want to see him again. Just to see how well he's doing. But maybe we've both changed too much to actually carry on a conversation. We're not the kids we used to be, we can't bypass the boring talk and jump into bed together.
Hm.
Today has been so long. I've been up since eight this morning and haven't really accomplished anything aside from painting the back patio and buying sneakers. Hopefully I'll get to talk to Austin tonight since we haven't really spoken in two days. I wish long distance calls to the States were cheaper. Tomorrow morning I'm going to Dad's office to do some data input work for a few hours, luckily I don't have to be completely conscious to do it properly.
I guess I'll go lay down with my dog since I've run out of things to write about. Night :)
