the quality of noiselessness

'quiet moments' seem intentional, relaxing, a space to calm down. a 'no noise moment' is an instance of respite in this house that is too close, too loud, and too full of voices that don't care about the others.

sometimes I wonder if I will understand these posts two years after I write them. I'm at home for the first time since I left to live in Toronto, my grandmother is visiting, and there is marriage talk all the time but none of it is directed towards me yet. Advantages of being a student and looking like I am still 15, I guess.

Food is a chore, alone and quiet time is a luxury, the bathroom is anxiety, and gorintaaku gets applied on your fingers and toes with care. There is no mindspace to think but everything is swirling anyway.

damien rice and lisa hannigan

"Unplayed Pianos" comes up in the shuffle and suddenly I have goosebumps.

What are they up to? I know they've broken up - I know I am instinctively on Lisa's side, I have both her solo albums and she's broken and charming and beautiful

there's one man so bright, he blocks the light/ and he'll always be so) (songs that meant so much at
some point

but has she put out any new songs? I google them both.

There's an interview by Damien Rice from October 2014. Last year, when I was spending days in bed telling myself I had headaches, I was exhausted, I didn't need to go to class today. At that same time he was saying he's released a new album, he says the split from Lisa was so hard on him that he wasn't able to make music again till she clearly told him no "beautifully... should do their own thing."

I know I'm not going to listen to the new album. My Favourite Frayed something. Stupid.
It's funny how I've moved on to Songhoy Blues and D'Angelo and the Vanguard and A Tribe Called Red, Hemanta and Kishore Kumar, Hari and Sukhmani and Amit Trivedi, but Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan sit at the base of my skull where I can't see them at all but feel them so hard when they come into awareness.

There's a series of black and white images of the two of them.

Damien is frozen in place, facing the camera straight on, eyes open, eyes closed, face frozen mostly. Lisa is more mobile, she looks in different directions, black hair in braids.
I can feel that splintering inside, that brave face that Lisa wears all through "Sea Sew" didn't we all break down/ didn't we all fake/ isn't it all right now/ didn't we all break out  Mostly because I can imagine a beautiful brooder like Damien reach in through the rip in my sleeve and squeeze my heart until there was nothing left.

In these pictures, they're a couple but not Couple, they're artistic partners first. They're Cool like that.

i love your depression/ and i love your double chin/ i love most everything you bring to this offering//
oh i know that i left you/ in places of despair/ oh i know that i love you/ so please throw down your hair/ at night i trip without you/ and hope i don't wake up/ cuz waking up without you/ is like drinking from an empty cup 

Good for you, Lisa, I pump my fists in my head. Good for you for moving on, for simply and clearly saying no. Fuck him. Google says you're dating Gary Lightbody? You sound nice with him on "Some Surprise", but it's not a you-song. It's frothy, light, bubblegummy. It's made for some clear tenor, not a throaty whisper of a jazz voice you have. It's not goosebump material.

Fuck you Damien, fuck you fuck you how could you do it, how could you lash out at that lego castle and spray pieces around the room with nothing but spite on your breath. You'll never be as good, never never never, and you're cursed now to always be in orbit around her

landing

From the plane window I see the Delhi moon
I mean, the moon over Delhi
It's the same one everywhere
But my heart leaps into my throat.
And when the pilot announces his regrets -
Due to traffic we will be in a holding pattern
for 25 minutes or more. 
I take five deep breaths.
My parents are waiting for me down there
My presents for them sitting in the belly of the plane.
I am impatient but scared too.
The moon hasn't changed but Delhi definitely woul dhave.
My friends, my family, even me - it's been
eight months. We've all changed.

for/from/to n.

We forge - in the velvety night chill,
garbage trucks rumbling, our rickety house
shuddering with the wind -
a fragility, breath snorting as we cry.
The body remembers,
you say. We clutch, hold on.
The body remembers even if I don't.

toronto in the spring sunshine is infectious

I'm sitting in high park library, facing Roncesvalles avenue, a happy haven of hipster-yuppie activity on the best of days. Across the street in front of CIBS, a boy begins to set up instruments. He puts out a yellow and black top hat first, and set up a drum set - big drum, snare and cymbals. I see a guitar too. Black shirt, black sunglasses, blond hair flying in the wind, white, white skin. He sets up his drums and he begins to play, people walk past with a look, people walk by with their heads turned away, people stop and drop a coin in the hat. A mustachioed, ginger braided man comes by to chat, and the blond boy stops playing - does the man want him to stop? Is his music too disruptive on this sunshine drenched warm day? No, after two minutes and two more drops in his hat he starts up again. It almost sounds like drum practice, just simple rhythms played again and again, with seeming effortlessness. It's a glamorous effect, this blond white boy sitting at the corner of Roncesvalles and Wright, playing the drums with his sunglasses on, without a single damn care. A sweatshirted woman walks past dancing, and he grins at her. All I can think of is, damn I'm stuck in the library, damn how do people do this with their time, and taking a picture of this and showing my friends in Delhi - omg you guys this is summer in the first world!!!

ETA: So I stepped out of the library, and crossed the road towards him. The dancing sweatshirt woman crossed me on the street, body still swaying, and her smile put a smile on my face that didn't leave for the rest of the walk back home. I walked past the drummer boy doing his exercises, squinting in the sun because of course I forgot my sunnies. And then behind me a crotchety old white man walked up to drummer boy, drummer boy held his cymbals together and tapped on them while he spoke, and crotchey man told him to stop making the noise unless he had a licence! And a cloud passed over the sun at that very moment. lollll the power of crotchety old white men

hah synergy

This morning I woke up with 'a change is gonna come' playing in my head.
Then, working at the library, I found myself downloading Spotify completely on a whim. Selected to play songs by Modest Mouse first, and then randomly clicked on the Indie genre station, then the Soul. So full of old favourites, I swayed along, and the tenth song that comes on is Sam Cooke, A Change is Gonna Come. Heh. It was a soul music kind of day I guess.

time and my left knee

My left knee has been hurting for a few weeks now.
I hate this country. Nothing is cheap here. I can't go to the doctor to get it fixed. My union is on strike and I don't know where the money will come from. I just don't know.

My home feels unfamiliar to me all over again. This Sunday drags its feet, a sunny beautiful day outside but my knee and my back hurts and my pockets are empty.