Someone I know sometimes posts pictures (on Facebook, so I can’t really link you to them) of her walks through the graveyard near her home, which makes me feel a little jealous that she has a graveyard. I still don’t know where the graveyards in this city are. But I have an ocean, so I shouldn’t complain too much.
There is something excellent about being able to walk to the beach and look at the giant ships (and the kayaks and sailboats and standing paddle-surfers) from your home. And while I’m sure the graveyard has fewer people, that just means there’d be so many fewer people out having interesting conversations like there were by the seawall tonight. Talking about the weirdest day they’d just had, or complaining loudly about their teeth or talking slow and braying about Luongo or Toronto.
These tulips placed in the bronze (or whatever) handbag of a statue aren’t always there. Over in the laughing people sculptures I saw more flowers placed in their hands. I kind of like that flower arrangements as a form of graffiti. I also like the benches in Stanley Park that have little memorial plaques to make me feel less jealous.
The Dubious Monk
chinese curses since twenty aught two
Tag Archives: ocean
what passes for contemplative geography
One of my profs is in Toronto for the iConference this week (where people from the iSchools get together and do informationy kinds of things) so I didn’t have to go to my normal 8am class today, which I appreciated, but it’s making me feel like school is entirely an illusion. And since that means unlike every other library school student in the history of the world apparently, I have lots of free time (still being unemployed) I got a good pile of stuff done the last couple of days (most of it very boring, like catching up on my book reviews).
This afternoon though, I went walking up the seawall and looked at the cargo ships sitting out in the Burrard Inlet (or Salish Sea or possibly all the way out to the Strait of Georgia). I like being able to do that. It’s some sort of connection to the world in terms of physical objects that’ll be crossing the ocean and I get to see them as they leave. I guess a lot of them just have oil or some other planet-killing thing in them. Or they’re just going down to Seattle and not on a real voyage at all. But still.
Another thing I love here is how the mix of hills and water give you great views of the city. When I bike home from school I get to fly down the terrible hill I’ve fought my way up already once that day, and there’s this gap created by English Bay that lets me see all the lights of downtown, and up in North Vancouver and way out east. I don’t have to pedal and I can just look at the city as I speed down into it again (well, into Kits, but close enough). And then when I’m climbing up over the Burrard Bridge you feel right in and above all the lights. It’s these bits of perspective before getting swallowed up in the urban canyons that I love.
I don’t know if I’m staying in Vancouver past my degree’s end, but if I leave these are things I’ll miss.
when you’re out of fuel, i’m still afloat, puking and shivering
Sunday I learned that I like songs about surfing much more than the actual act. There’s something about swallowing all that seawater and relying on my spindly arms for propulsion and being so terribly cold that isn’t really conveyed in the melodies of the Beach Boys.
The members of our house got a deal on surfing lessons and so we took them. At the time Holly said “Really?” when I said I’d try too. And yes, surfing probably was never going to really be for me, but I’m here in Australia and it seemed like something I should do when I’m here. I mean, I haven’t had the chance to manhandle koalas or introduce an invasive species or anything. But surfing I could at least try. Maybe I would really like it.
I didn’t.
It might have been better if I’d had a wetsuit that actually fit me. Supposedly they’re supposed to let a little water in but it gets stuck in there and your body warms it up and you’re all insulated. When you’re skinny and wearing a rented wetsuit that’s flopping around and isn’t close to being tight, the water just flows through and it’s like you’re just splashing around in the cold cold ocean. Which I don’t really do for enjoyment.
I ended up bailing out after being flung around by the sea enough to know that the fleeting moment of being pushed along by the sea trying to touch the moon wasn’t worth the pain and pukiness.
The instructors were good about coming to check on me sitting on the beach and shivering, to make sure I was all right. But the one guy said I would have really enjoyed myself if I’d gone back in. I know myself well enough to be able to call him on that lie, but he was just a twenty-year-old trying to talk about the stuff he loved to do, so I just told him not to worry. I did not explain how little my body and I have in common, and how little trust there is between us, and how that trust was easily shattered and wasn’t going to be repaired by heading out into the ocean again to get even colder.
So yes, I have tried surfing. I don’t live everything completely secondhand. Which was kind of the point of that endeavour.
your troubles in your old kit bag
So in two(!) days I’ll be getting on a plane bound for Australia. My Occupational Training visa has not come through yet,and last week this was a cause for much anguish. The Easter weekend and the time delay in sending things around the globe means there’s little chance this visa will be ready for me to begin work in a week as scheduled.
But. I have a tourist visa to enter the country. And really, there’s nothing I can do here while we wait for the Australian government to approve of me in all my glory, so why the fuck not go? And that’s what I’m doing. It would be nice to start work and actually be receiving a paycheque but the fact remains that my room in Vancouver is rented out already, so it’s couchsurf here or be a tourist in Oz.
Now I’m packing up my room to put things into storage till Holly and I return to Vancouver in January. Essentially all my books are packed. I have an entire bag of Tshirts that isn’t going to Sydney. I’m almost at the point where anything that isn’t packed can either get tossed in a random box or be thrown out and it won’t really matter one way or another.
I’m restricting myself to taking two carryon bags for the next 8 months. Mostly because I like that kind of challenge, but also because then it feels a lot less like I’m “moving to Australia for 8 months” and more like I’m “going to Australia.” Going to Australia is a lot less freakout-inducing. I mean, I’m really excited about this and everything, but still, crossing the planet isn’t something everyone does really lightly.
I like living in chunks of time (part of why I like being back in school with its semesterization), and I don’t think this is as worrying as beginning a job or something without an end in sight, not knowing how next year at this time would be different. I mean, next year at this time Holly’ll be here and I’ll be taking summer courses to finish the degree inshallah. The year after that: completely unknown (except that Holly and I will not be separated by oceans; I can’t wait to be done with that).
Anyway. Two days till I leave and I have a bunch of packing left to do (plus voting).
like the ocean
The noise from the school next to Holly’s apartment is impressive in the morning. Holly had to leave early to get her lessons ready but she warned me. “I hope you have good headphones if you want to get any work done. It’s loud. They start at 8.” And it’s not that I didn’t believe her. She’s been telling me about the school noise for months, because it’s something I didn’t experience when I was here in the summer.
This morning I was buried under blankets when the noise began to build. It wasn’t so much dread inducing as how I imagine surfing must be like. You see the wave coming and I guess if you’re good at it you can tell what kind of wave it’ll be and how best to ride it, but I was out paddling on my board doing my best seal-impression for the sharks below, seeing something build and guessing. Is this it? How big will it get? Will I be able to handle it or am I going to be the shmuck who dies on his first attempt.
The school noise wasn’t that bad (I didn’t feel like I was going to die, and managed to get a good chunk of work done without good headphones), but it did keep on building and building until it stopped for a megaphoned voice to harangue people. Maybe it’s just because it’s Monday and this was the traditional week-beginning assembly or something, but the voice went on for an hour. After they all sang the national anthem, whose tune I realized I still could sort of remember from back in Wanzhou.
Even now (it’s about 10am) the kids are basically just white noise of shouting and boisterousness. It’s one of the shouting (or electronically amplified) teachers exhorting his students that really cuts through. He sounds a little like a hoarse host of a Japanese talk show, you know with all of that fake wacky energy? But it sounds like his class is responding so who am I to judge. Just a lousy ex-teacher who’s sitting in bed writing.
