seeing the pleiades riding on taurus' shoulder

If I had $95 to $200,000 to spare, I might buy a ticket for a seat on a sub orbital flight into space. A brief look at earth's curvature and some minutes of weightlessness. You can do that these days, if you have those meaningful pieces of paper in bulk.

A while ago I came up with this question that is somewhat character defining to my judgemental mind: Given the chance between a week in outer space alone or six months in Europe, if money had no bearing, which would you choose?

I would love to give my mind the added dimension that an insider's look at inner space would. Being in space instead of pondering it as an outsider from thousands of lightyears away (or below or above or within or without or whathaveyou). Think about how that would change your mind!

Space makes my mind breathe in a different way because it forces a broader frame of reference, or maybe takes away any kind of knowable frame. It makes my cluttered mind want to do some spring cleaning, to sweep out the corners where the petty thoughts linger, gather dust and end up characterizing my daily thoughtlife. I want to know space and to obtain a sense of unfathomable distance, size and real emptiness. Of lightness and darkness, of time collapsing.

If you said Europe, then I don't know...

on a wednesday

Stood for a bus on a highway off-ramp, wind so strong my shirt was flashing my belly, sand in my eyes and cars whipping past. Then on the bus where I can smell ten different people and feel the heat of three for a ride through this foreign neighborhood. Seeing all of the different people, the cans of beer tucked into brown paper bags, the sweat beading on people's foreheads and soaking in the smalls of their backs. Then on the metro, staring at the dried puke on the sliding door and that man who is leaning right into it, talking animatedly to his wife, unknowing. Then emerging back up via escalator to the sounds of a busker playing 'heart and soul' on an electric guitar, only it took me a few seconds to place it but now it's right in my head. Skin feels greasy and dirty and I'm sweating still in the air conditioned library, but I feel like my head is put on straight and I feel that familiar giddiness that comes from deep in my chest and must be expelled and so I keep laughing and sort of day dreaming about jumping into Lake Huron.

onset of summer in the city

Sunny spring day off. Perfect kind of air, not hot or humid but warm and breezy. Walked just a little ways. Big street is closed off as they string up some pink bulbs and lights to make this space more festive for the coming summer months which will fill even fuller with people and action. Sitting in l'Escalier, by the window with the light pouring in and the breeze feeling nice. Drinking coffee and listening to some hornfilled slow jazz, reggae, french anthem like songs that some dj is fiddling with in the corner.

My little homemade sign request for someone to share the internet in my dingy apartment building culled no interest, but I left it up for months anyway. Thought maybe in the fall someone would see it... Then walked in yesterday to a note under my door with a name and number. But now I don't know if I want it anymore! I have been getting used to a nice little routine without it. I like having to walk to a place like this to use it, to sit for a little while, drink some coffee or tea and get filled in/filled up and then leave it there to rest until the next time. I feel worried that if I have it fulltime, I will abuse it and overdo it. But I also feel like maybe that is a good challenge, getting it and making a real effort not to do that. I dunno! I do feel out of the loop in a lot of ways though without internet: I don't write as many emails, don't skype, don't chat, don't read the news, don't get new music, don't know what's happening musically here or elsewhere. Yeah, but I think I am managing alright. I feel a weird dilemma about this now, whether to accept the answer to my own offer. I guess I'll see.

This onset of spring has been really lovely, and changing the whole feel of this city. It's so amazing, to have dreamed about a place and a reality and then to have it come true. One thing I have been noticing is the amalgamation of so many smells, walking down a street and right through walls of so many different things. It's a lot of garbage and dog shit and piss and rotten food and cigarettes but mixed in with wet soil and worms and new flowers and clean laundry and groceries and cooking food. The streets are also filthy, but beautiful too because even though there is garbage everywhere, the buildings are so lovely and everyone is making the most of their tiny plots of land by planting and tending to gardens. And there is a mixture of people everywhere you look, the down and out walking right between the well to do, everybody touches elbows and breezes by. And some people smile right at me and wish me a good day and some people scowl or look more often at the ground. Everyone is here! A jumble of everything, a city. I guess this is new to me, and I realize how much I love it.

Yesterday I brought a blanket to the park and lay in the grass, listening to tunes and looking intermittently at the sky and the people and the new leaves on every tree. I read some more about Neil Young's journey through life and also just lay back with my eyes wide open and thought about things. I get to walk five minutes and lay down, that is incredible. I kept thinking I was going to be longing for the water and the escarpment and the small town harbours once summer set in here, but I think that the city charms will continue to win me over as they have begun to.

fieldwork

That sky was lit up that odd shade of blue, the half of the moon that the sun still touched was this weird beacon in outer space, as if stuck there. It does not seem to be dangling from anywhere because there is no hook, no ceiling, no rooftop and just no stopping outer space. The grass is green, I know it, but in that light it's almost purple and it's dampening under my feet. The evening is every colour, muted. The transition into night is slow. The smell is of things growing and things falling apart. The air is all around and there is the fast and slow rearrangement of each piece into a different thing that is essentially the same. What do I know but what I feel? If there were an answer I would find it by climbing the silver thread from which the moon does not dangle.

just watching

Slept through the heat of the day, and through phonecall reminders about the beauty just behind the curtain. But I couldn't muster it, not until 5pm and then thank goodness that it was still as light and lovely. Sitting on the metal balcony that overlooks a hundred others below it, the street so jampacked with people and cars. What a lovely way to watch the day wind down, watching people, watching the sky as it's turning blue before black. Watching that best light touch everything that way, drinking cold beer and listening to new Radiohead. Talk about life and you create an excellent way of visualizing the mediator artist, one foot in each realm, bringing the information down from the mountaintop to the people. Everything flows through and isn't that both wonderful and terribly frustrating, having both everything and nothing at all. There is a wasp crawling all over your brown leather hat, and getting comfortable. Staking a claim I suppose, because hours later after walks in and out, down the street and up the stairs, the wasp remains there on your hat. Hmm.

city invisibility

Fell asleep to the sounds of an old man rifling through the garbage bags outside my window. He was making these noises that seemed part moan, part howl, part song, part selftalk, part pain, part gasp, like a man sized raccoon who has seen better nights. It started to rain and the rain is starting to turn into snow and the snow is turning into slush. I can feel this weather living inside my skull and there doesn't feel like there is enough room in there for both my brain and this storm. Building pressure and I think I might need to take my brain out for the evening and maybe even longer, until the sky clears. I would like to be in a boat just floating in water, and then curl up in a bird's nest for seven days and nights. You can come too.

a spring wind to blow the cobwebs away

Strange winds blowing, the kind that make you wobble as you're walking. Force you sideways, even. Good thing my hairs are attached to my head, because that wind wanted to take them away and I bet that even your snugfitting hat would have been airborne in such a breeze! The mildness in the air is something that I haven't felt in at least six months and it's so invigorating and causes stirs of excitement for the things that are on their way. I lean into that pushing wind and watch my step as I lumber along the muddy pathway through the park. Two young boys are playing with cap guns, from far away I see one lying on the ground, the other standing above him looking helpless. I worry that something has happened, and then closer, I see the little silver gun in the taller boy's hand, his foot perched upon the other boy's torso. Nothing alarming, just a good old game of cops and robbers or cowboys and indians. The taller one must be winning, like how my brother always won, no matter what. I make my one and only gunshot noise, pointing my finger as I pass them (only the sound gets lost in the wind) and then they're out of sight but I can hear the firing guns behind me, "pkew! pkew!", as I hunker down and carry onwards towards nothing in particular, except maybe a clearer head.