Loud

Sometimes life is about being quiet.

And sometimes, life is about being loud.  About being so loud that the blood rushes through your ears, it drowns out everything and anyone who tells you to stop.  It's about taking control and abandoning yourself and everything you ever knew.  It's falling flat face first, it's jumping higher and breathing deeper and screaming at the top of your lungs, exploding outward and expanding upward.

Sometimes, my life is about being loud.

And then afterward, I stay quiet a long time.

Twitter in Toronto

Okay...okay...so picture this.  It is 11:45 at night in a humid, sticky Toronto night.  I'm riding the metro, a packed car, surrounded by a hundred people in all their best party clothes, short skirts this, vests and ties that, looking for a night on the town, hitting up clubs and bars.  There's me, book out, sketching out a scene and scribbling some dialogue, legs propped up on the seat in front of me.

I'm in a city of what, 4 million people?  Totally alone.  Nobody says hello, nobody says anything to anyone who isn't their friends.  They don't even make eye contact when they jostle you, or step on your sandal feet, or when you hold the door open for em.  Well maybe some of them do, but certainly not on a hopping saturday night in the core in Toronto, center of the goddamn universe.

I'm totally alone.

Headphones in, listening to a lonely guitar wailing on when my phone vibrates.  You know, in my pocket.  I pull it out and glance at it, and read your message.  And at first I laugh.  You're such a geek Nicole!  You know how this twitter stuff works.  Two years!  I almost laugh out loud.  Then I get to the end, your "I miss you."

Now I'm not saying I teared up.  Maybe I blinked just a little too hard after that, but the whole weight of the world, of all the touring for the last two months, of all the big city this, wide open sky that, near misses with cabs and transit and everything else later, well maybe I just blinked a little too hard right then.  And anyway this girl glances at me, and is like

"Hey?  Are you alright?"

I look up, pull my headphones out, "Me?"

"Yeah, are you...?" She gestures to her eyes, and I take a quick swipe at what is sweat, really, because it's super hot all week here, and it rained this afternoon and I'm sticky, and gross, and yeah.

"Yeah I'm good, I'm good."

Then she points, this girl, like mid twenties, at my cell phone still out.  "She must be someone special."

"Yeah, she's my friend, two thousand klicks away."  I hesitate then, and there's a lump in my throat.  And then, in the midst of all this stage managing, and all this 'art' and all these people...the first really true thing out of my mouth today.  "I miss her too."

"Oh yeah?"  The girl smiles, then puts her headphones back in.  "You should tell her so."

So yeah.  Yeah.

Mother's Day

She grimaced for a second, and he pretended not to notice. It was easier that way, simpler. If you pretended not to notice, then you didn't have to bring it up. If you didn't have to bring it up, then you didn't have to have a long and awkward stammering discussion about it. It was easier that way, simpler.

It was a cold, grey day. And for a moment, he closed his eyes, taking it in. If he forced himself to, he almost believed for a second being in a different time and place. And not at this precipice moment alongside her. She was silent, and for that he was thankful. Had been silent the entire journey, as though the weight of the things that had to be said were a collar around both her neck...and his.

How long they stood there, together and apart looking out he could not say. Finally she reached over to him. She took his hand in both of hers, seeking...holding. He felt her squeeze softly, it was a question there, unspoken. He could not muster the response. His hands were neither clammy nor dry, as though they were not his hands at all entirely, but the hands of another man in his place. He wanted to open his eyes, he knew she wanted reassurance, but he had none to give. She gave up after a breath, her hand slipped from his, and the sound of rock beneath her boots announced her retreat.

Still he felt nothing. His heart was heavy, laden with unspoken thoughts. His mind was still sifting and sorting through all the possibilities, each one more indistinct than the last. Finally he opened his eyes, having searched and come up with nothing. And he discovered his cheeks were wet with tears. When they had happened, there was no memory of it. But still the dampness crept down his face, unbidden, but for once, not shameful.

A crack of thunder made him finally look up, a long way off a storm brewed. It seemed a fitting thing. Finally he knelt, and lay the small bundle of wildflowers atop the shrine. They were fresh, hand picked that morning. She returned to him, sword and belt in hand, it was time, and there was no more for it. He took it and bade her go with a hand gesture, seeking one final moment of silence before the coming night.

"Goodbye," and then, "Happy Mother's day."

And then he strode away into the dusk, leaving behind only a memory of tears.