Sadness Is A Blessing

I’m sitting on the Eurostar back to London after a few days in Paris with my sister and her boyfriend. We stayed in a little attic apartment in Le Marais and had a lovely time strolling around the city, sitting in cafes, wandering through galleries, cooking, drinking wine and eating offensively footy cheeses.

It’s been a couple years since I visited the city and I’d forgotten how seductive it is. I fell in love all over again on every street corner, with every beautiful Parisian that passed by.

Comparisons don’t always help much, but Paris has a beauty and infectious bon-vivantism that London can’t touch. It’s such a celebration.

Many of my friends say living in Paris is terrible and depressing and it kills the romance, but as I look toward the new year and my expiring UK visa, I see opportunity there - just like I’ve seen it in Barcelona and Budapest and a dozen other cities.

For a while, I’ve been viewing my boot from the UK (if I do get the boot) as a sentence to go back home, but in the end I can go almost anywhere if I’m willing to fight hard and make concessions. I made a lot of them to stay in London and even now, the fight is still daily for me.

I guess I’ll fight a daily battle wherever I end up next, though: my struggle with the world is not linked to geography, it’s deeper than that; it’s a battle with myself, with my ambitions and with the meaning of life. I can’t shut that off. There’s no snooze button for philosophical crises.

In the end, going back to Canada isn’t such a bad option, if that’s what happens. It would be great to spend more time with my family. Seeing them once a year is the worst. It puts too much pressure on hellos and far too much weight on goodbyes.

I do want the adventure of new places and spaces - it’s good for me to live outside my comfort zone, to start fresh, rebuild and learn to understand the world and myself in different ways. It would be nice if I could achieve that without neglecting relationships that are important to me.

Living abroad and having the freedom and mobility that accompanies that is an amazing privilege, but it also demands sacrifices and trade-offs. Saying goodbye to my sister today - and every time - hammers that message home.

Home - now there’s a difficult concept.

On the road, again.

Sitting in Vienna Airport, sipping a coffee on my connection to London from Sarajevo. I've enjoyed some time in Bosnia again with the Sarajevo crew - hitting the city for the fourth Ramadan in a row - during a whirlwind road trip through Montenegro and Croatia, then Venice and Budapest.

This is the first trip in a long time that hasn't lent me any sort of grand philosophical introspection or grounding perspective on the life I am taking a break from. I usually return from the road with a renewed sense of where I stand in the grand scope of things, a deep and aching sense of the world's beauty and tragedy.

But nothing. Part of me is worried I'm growing numb, losing my idealism and with it my ability to perceive truth and beauty in my experiences. I feel (almost unnaturally) uninspired, unaffected. But nonetheless, this trip has given me some constructive working points for projects and goals. And I have an ocean of past inspiration lurking in scribbled journal entries and photos. I have so much to tap into, I don't need to maintain the constant high of epiphanies and adventures and scandals that I once thought was necessary.

What's really necessary is focus and discipline, and I'm ready to write and work. I'm ready to cozy up this autumn and really get some work done. I'm ready for more.

I don't want to go back

It's rare that a weekend away changes you. Sometimes it gives you a glimmer of possibilities, of romance and adventure and new life. Sometimes it casts a heavy shadow on the places at home you already suspected were breeding darkness. Sometimes the shadow stretch across the areas you thought were bathed in light.

Life is confusing. We sit in such a delicate balance between beauty and tragedy, mostly unaware of the precarious nature of our position until the balance shifts. And it shifts so quickly and easily.

I know more than ever the future I want. I know more than ever that I can't keep putting off my calling - the calling I feel - for obligations. I'd rather have nothing than an endless supply of the wrong thing. I'd rather have a chance to try.

I don't want to be wrong.

Out of the void

It's been months since I've updated my blog. February was rough. I was at my wits' end. I had given up. I was done.

In the nick of time, things happen.

I remember reading this amazing essay by Jeffrey Essman back in the winter called Work Is a Four-Letter Word about a man who suffers through 15 months of unemployment, getting by through freelancing, temping, whatever it takes. He can barely believe it when he gets a job. Life changes over night. He can buy things.

It was an essay that meant a lot to me after 17 months of unemployment and 7 months of couch surfing and subletting, doing whatever it took to get by, while clinging to my dreams. It gave me some reassurance, to know someone else went through this and came out on the bright side. I didn't have the strength of vision to see my happy ending coming, but it did.

I'm now three months into a job - a good one - that I somehow managed to be beat out 1,700 applicants for. That number baffles me. It's a huge number! There's a comma in it!

Day by day I'm feeling stronger and more myself. I'm regenerating, coming out of the void.

Things happen, sometimes, when there is nothing more you could possibly do by your own efforts. And the victory is never quite as sweet, as when it is also your salvation.

Lament for a Generation

I am young, intelligent, educated, experienced. I have passion and ideas, vision and insights. I am gifted, beautiful, resourceful, refined, gracious and compassionate. I am strong and resilient, hard-working, motivated and empowered. I am intellectually and emotionally attuned. I respect diversity of background and opinion. I embrace change and technology and look boldly to the future, but recognize the lessons of history.

I am a number, a statistic, irrelevant, invalidated. I am unemployed, underemployed, unpaid. I am tired, weak, broken, fragile. I am homeless, wandering, searching, not finding. I am broke, in debt, past-due. I am losing hope, hopeless. I photocopy, staple, file, Excel, but I don't excel. I am undervalued, disowned, shut out and shut down. I am rejected, dejected, forgotten. I am lost.

"My Body's a Zombie For You"

There are only stories with pain. We need pain to learn, and a story needs lessons to matter.

Screaming and crying and broken glass and broken hearts - it's not worth it. It's too much. Love is as much of a construct as any ideology or religion or cultural custom that is qualified and deconstructed in every university classroom. We know better, but we still believe. We have to believe.

If there's anything in the world we believe in purely and truly, it is love. And we believe over and over and over again, even when love shoots us in the face and we lose so much blood that we almost don't make it.

It takes months - sometimes years - for the wounds to heal, and the scars never completely fade, but fuck, we still believe.

And worse: we hope. We desperately reach out our arms with tears in our eyes and pain in our chests and a rush of blood to our crotches, and we grab for that tortuously elusive someone that will fill our hearts and our holes and makes it all worth it.

But is it? Is it really worth it when so often in the end at least one of us decides that it is, in fact, not worth it at all. Not anymore.

Sometimes it makes for a good story. Good, perhaps only if we still believe. And deep down, we do believe, don't we? Don't you?

Learning

There's no starting over, no going back. Our lives stretch forward before us endlessly and heavy with promise only once. I am not that fifteen-year-old boy anymore. I won't be him again. I'm myself now, only.

But the future still stretches on, long past my dreams and fears, and far into a future that I am not a part of. But some 15-year-old boy will be a part of that future. And if I play my cards right, maybe he'll read my book.

Maybe he'll read my book and realize his life is already sand through the hour glass, and that he must run and fight and love and make beautiful mistakes with goodness in his heart, before his time runs out too. So much sand falling forever, forever, forever, until...

Another Year

Keats Island, September 2010

I've spent the last few weeks cozied up in Dalston at K and O's flat. I love them so much, and am so thankful for the hospitality they have shown me. I spent the Christmas holidays alone, for the first time ever. More out of choice, than necessity - there were people in London I could have spent it with. Instead, I spent the days cooking, drinking nice wine, going on snow walks, watching films, reading, writing, prioritising. It was a working holiday, in a sense, and I think it laid a good foundation to move forward from.

Being in Hackney has been a godsend. I've been waiting so long to live here, and it just feels so right. Staying with K and O has also been part of that, because I love them so much, and they really did welcome me into a 'home' for the time I was here. I'm leaving tomorrow, though - subletting a friend's room in Waterloo for the month of January.

After that, who knows, really? It is scary not knowing where one is going to hang one's hat a month from now. Or how one will pay the bills, stay afloat. I've been living under that sky of uncertainty for a while now, and you sort of surrender yourself to it, to a blind hope that things will work out. But it doesn't get any easier. You just learn to have faith and to not think too much about how scary it all is, about what happens with opportunities dry up and the generosity of friends runs out.

Not that January is going to change anything, just because another year has clocked in, but I do have hope that the new year will be a good one. The time for playing games is over, and I've got to grab life by the balls and press on. I think I'm less inclined to the bullshit and timidity I've had before about my talents and abilities, and that's a good thing. I know that life doesn't get handed to you on a platter. The idea that success and progress come quickly and easily is long lost in the idealism of my youth. I know it all comes down to work hard and making your own opportunities. I'm ready.

I know now, more than ever, what I want, and what I can do. I know sacrifices have to be made, and occasionally compromises. I also know that - as a passionate being with a highly moralised view of the universe and my life - I'm more inclined to sacrifice than compromise. That's something many people in my life can't understand, but I do think in the long run that may make all the difference.

2011 is going to be, hopefully, about hard work, about being truthful - to myself, to my talents and passions, and to the people in my life. I spent half the year being tortuously in love with someone I couldn't tell because I have always lived my life with unnecessary conscience. Conscience is important, but sometimes, when push comes to shove, we've just got to live.

Things I want to do less of this year: medicating, hiding, procrastinating, smoking, doubting, complaining, settling.

Things I want to do more of this year: writing, reading, networking, socialising, earning, corresponding, learning, running, risking, loving, succeeding.

Fighting Words

How do you channel so much passion and anger into a cause? How do you pick a cause when there a million things to be passionately angry about?

How do we focus on fighting for the things we believe in, when our world is so fucking expensive, and paying the bills is a battle on its own?

I need a venue for my talents that uses them fully, that develops them and moves me forward.

I need a venue for my passion and anger that channels it towards something constructive and powerful.

I want change. I want to learn and study and know. I want to know what the fuck I am talking about. And I want you to listen.

I want to connect with people that are subversive not for the sexiness of rebellion and the coolness of alternativeness, but because the engrained badness in the world needs subverting.

Can you help me? Can I help you?

We thought we had such problems. How were we to know we were happy?

My sister gave me 'The Handmaid's Tale' for my birthday. It's been ages since I've read Margaret Atwood. Her prose is inspirational. It makes me happy to read good Canadian fiction, like it does to listen to good Canadian music. It means something more, like eating nice food grown in your own backyard.

"I lie in bed, still trembling. You can wet the rim of a glass and run your finger around the rim and it will make a sound. This is what I feel like: this sound of glass. I feel like the word shatter. I want to be with someone."

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

It's November - half way through November, actually! I completely missed October, due to the London Film Festival; missed the leaves falling and the autumn-y romance of London parks.

I turned 25 last week. It wasn't a big deal. I remember 24 seeming like such a THING: I was no longer in my early 20s; I no longer had the excuse of being so young; the years were getting away from me now, and I was no closer to being where I wanted to be.

24, on paper, was a year with more failures than successes. But in reality, it was a year filled with so much trying and fighting, and with coming to terms with what I want, what I need, and getting comfortable with myself in the process. I think I'm a lot more comfortable with everything, actually: more resigned to the ebb and flow of the universe, but increasingly aware of things that will and won't move me further ahead, and more committed to fighting my own personal battles.

I wrapped up my position at the 2010 BFI London Film Festival at the beginning of the month. It was one of the most emotionally and physically exhausting experiences of my life, but I can't begin to say how much I enjoyed it. I've met incredibly inspiring people from around the world, made many friends, and pushed my own personal limits. Hopefully some of the connections I've made will blossom into future opportunities. We'll see!

Last week I was marvelling over the fact that my plan for the autumn - getting an internship, and then going to Algeria to do my novel research - was actually going ahead perfectly. My plans never actually go ahead! Just a few days after being baffled by the realisation that things were working out, I found out my tourist visa for Algeria was not going to be completed in time for my flight this weekend - if it even goes through at all. So I won't be boarding that plane on Saturday.

I'm okay with that. It's thrown a kink in my plans, but the fact that I've actually booked tickets, made the preparations, and put things in motion, means so much on a personal level. I know I'm going - eventually - and that this project, which I believe in so strongly, will be completed.

All in good time, Trent. All in good time.

Now 25, let's do this thing.

Too Busy To Be Sad

First week of the London Film Festival is done. I've met a million interesting people, while working 16-hour days and running around like a crazy person. Two weeks to go!

I'm starting to feel, once again, like things are possible, like things aren't so grim and difficult. The good thing about being so busy is that I don't have time to think. I've been thinking for a year. Only thinking. And not acting. It's time for some action!

Royal Parks Half Marathon

Yesterday was the Royal Parks Half Marathon, which I've been training for for the past couple of months, to raise money for the MS Society. My friends Eric & James convinced me to sign up in June, and I did so hesitantly, seriously questioning whether I'd even be able to finish. But boy did I improve quickly.

In July, my goal was to finish. In August, my goal was a time of 2:30. When it came to race day, my goal time dropped down to 2:15 or under. In the end...?

2:04! I couldn't be more pleased. A special thanks to everyone who supported me and the MS Society in the race. If you haven't had the chance to donate, it's not too late to contribute. Contribute here.

Down & Out in London

I got back last week from an amazing visit home to Vancouver, which was incredibly rushed and stressful and busy, but also fantastic and rewarding and great. Being home made me realize how much better my quality of life would be if I moved back. Vancouver is such a beautiful, special place, and things would be a million times easier if I went home. But while I tremendously miss friends and family and the delights of the city, I know that Vancouver isn't going anywhere. And the only thing that got me on the plane back to London was knowing that I always have the opportunity to life in Vancouver. I won't always have the opportunity to be elsewhere.

And really, I think the last thing I need right now is the comfort and safety of home. As much as I want it, as much as I want to feel safe and secure, I know that continuing the struggle is probably going to reap the best rewards. I need to fight these battles. These are the adventures I need to learn from, this is how I'm going to fill my mind with characters and stories, ideas and inspiration.

I hate living the life of a vagrant, which is what I've basically become as of late. I want my own room, my own safe quiet space. I don't want to be a burden to friends, and I don't want to continually feel uprooted, adrift. But this is just for a season, and I know that it is offering me opportunities that I would otherwise not gain. I'm starting an internship for the next few weeks at the BFI London Film Festival. November, I'm thinking seriously about arranging a research trip for a project I'm working on, which is something I could potentially only really do under these circumstances. A lot of good can come from this period, I just need to try and not be so disheartened. Things will pick up and carry on.

If I don't risk having my words misunderstood, I don't give myself the opportunity to be understood

Literature, music, film.

These are the things I believe in. These are the things that make sense to me, that help me make sense of the world around me, make sense of myself, and my struggle with the universe. It always comes back to these three things.

I don’t want a job. I don’t want your comforts. I don’t want your obligations and your markers of personal success.

I want to be alone. And I want to be in communion with people that are good, curious, different. People that understand. I want to be both alone and in fellowship. To love and be loved, but not conventionally.

I was born an outsider. I was born different. Perhaps to make it easier for me to choose to be different, in the ways one can choose.

Those who came before us, who were lost in the fight for nothing and everything, we take you into our hearts. We take you with us on our own journeys, not entirely aware of what your lessons mean, and how they will help us, but knowing they are important and lasting. We salute you, brave soldiers, sons and daughters of a nameless and timeless revolt.

I'm OK if you're OK, London.

I'm becoming more aware of the fact that I oscillate between times of clarity, direction, purpose and hope, and other times where I get lost in the fog of confusion, hopelessness, frustration, and despair.

I'm bored of the latter phase, because as much as I enjoy revelling in the sadness of an existential crisis, my despair has been focussed on the same battles and issues for such a long time. It's tired, and tiring.

I've come to terms with the fact that in order for 2011 to go my way, things are going to have to change dramatically, and so I'm concentrating my efforts on new battles within the same greater war. I'm optimistic and excited. Right now, anyway.

I know my emotional pendulum will swing backwards into darker territory eventually (probably soon), but I'm going to try and focus on a few specific projects and opportunities, and as long as I fight for those, I know I can shine my little flashlight and keep truging down the darkened path towards daybreak.

Melodramatic much? Always.

East

Sitting in Sarajevo airport, waiting for my departure back to London via Munich.

Jelena picked me up at Sarajevo airport on Friday to begin our road trip to Kalsdorf Castle, near Graz, Austria, for our friend Hannes’ party. We ended up spontaneously heading to Pecs, Hungary for the first night, wanting a bit of a detour and adventure and some time alone to catch up. Pecs is a pretty, elegant city, and we slept in a strange bohemian hostel/sheesha bar/vintage store/tea shop, and drank beers in an atmospheric lot, still covered in the bricks and remains of some former building, and now illuminated with projected images and full of music and laughter and picnic tables. I’m totally intrigued by Hungary, and I definitely want to go back.

We didn’t arrive at the castle in Austria until dinner time on Saturday night -- after discovering that there are two towns named Kalsdorf near Graz -- but we spent a lovely evening drinking prosecco and local schnapps and beer, and jumping around on a bouncy castle positioned somewhat ironically in the inner courtyard of the castle itself. It was a great party, and a nice time with new and old friends. At four in the morning we sprawled out and slept uncomfortably on expensive imported carpets, positioned under expensive works of art, but woke up happy and thankful, and shared a delicious brunch in the courtyard with all the partygoers before Jelena and I headed back out on the road, through Slovenia and Croatia, back to Sarajevo.

I barely survived last week, but I did survive. I had to take it hour by hour just to pull through, physically and emotionally. Wednesday and Thursday night I probably got a combined 3.5 hours of sleep. I was wrecked and sad and overwhelmed and pushed to my limits.

I’m now moved out of my flat, and feel heavy with the load of my possessions, which have grown exponentially after two years in London. I need to purge, and let go of things I don’t need. The homeless don’t have the luxury of keeping and storing. So that’s the priority for this week: purge, purge, purge. Lighten my load of possessions, and hopefully lighten my spirits in return. Being without a home is fine when you can comfortably fit your possessions in a backpack. But it took me half a dozen loads in the pouring rain to move my belongings. That’s not cool, in my current position. That’s not a mobile state, in a time that demands a great deal of personal mobility.

This weekend - particularly spending time with Jelena, Ana and Vlado in Sarejevo - has refreshed me, but also made me feel apprehensive and unsure, once again, about geography. There is life and love and inspiration and adventure outside of London. It’s hard to realise that when you’re fighting to stay in a place that makes you work for every inch of space, every inch of success. London is like a vortex, though, that sucks you in and makes you feel like there is no other place to be, even if you aren’t happy there. Few people are satisfied there, but most are convinced of their place in the city.

Leaving London doesn’t scare me, though, as much as it has in the past. I love so many people there, and I love things about it so much, but my life in London, in reality, is not much of a life. Take away the friends, and I have nothing but memories. No job, no home, nothing tangible, nothing keeping me rooted. There’s nothing holding me there, besides... perhaps love and hope and nostalgia? And perhaps, deep down, stubbornness.

I know I want to be in Europe, but this weekend has made me realise that London isn’t necessarily the only place to be, or the best place for me to be, just because I have friends and a visa. Berlin and Budapest are spinning through the folds of my imagination, and occupying higher and higher positions in the platforms of my mind. I’m going to explore the potential in these cities over my month of reestablishing myself. I’m ready for adventure, and possibly a change of scenery. Particularly if opportunities in London don’t materialise soon. And I’m ready to fight broadly for the future, not just specifically, for a single urban dream that might represent the past more than anything.

I don’t want to board this flight. I’ve never been more tempted to walk out of an airport and get back into a cab. London: I’ve been fighting for you for so long. If you want me to stay, you’re going to have to fight for me too, because I’ve never wanted you less. I’m done. I’m hurt and I’m tired and I”m angry. You are being, frankly, kind of a bitch.

Fuck you, London. No seriously. Fuck you, you piece of shit. You’ll be lucky if I take you back. I fucking hate you right now. If you had a face I would slap you until you bled. I would kick your teeth in and pull your hair and leave you in the gutter, like you’ve done to me. I’m not joking, London. Say you’re sorry, you fucking jerk.

I’m sure I’ll forgive you. I always do. And I'm a pacifist anyway. 

Adventures in Hard Decision-Making

I've been frozen in inaction for quite some time. With my lease and job coming to and end this month, though, it was time to make big decisions. And the decision I ended up making was one I didn't even realise was an option 10 days ago: homelessness.

I'm handing in my keys tomorrow morning, and I'm no longer looking for another flat. I'll be staying with friends for the next couple weeks, going back to Vancouver for a couple more weeks, then back to London early October. I feel like this is exactly the decision I need to make, the decision that will give me a bit of a financial and emotional reprieve, and allow me to garner some momentum, to concentrate on taking some big steps forward, professionally. That has to be my number one priority right now.

So I feel good about the decision, even if I feel bad about being without a home. I'm so thankful for the generosity of my friends in London, though, who have stepped forward to offer couches and storage and hugs. In that regard, I'm the richest boy in town.

Last night was my final sleep at Warwick Way, and the few hours I managed to squeeze in between packing and cleaning was interrupted by haunting, haunting dreams that left me tired and unsettled this morning, and sad about this transition. But there is opportunity and adventure in the months ahead, and the blessings of friends and of choice, and I need to cling onto the positivity of the situation, and concentrate on things I can productively work towards.

I'm committed to put love on the back burner for now, but the universe is cruel, and I'm not safe in my dreams. Waking up is hard when you get what you want - who you want - only when you're sleeping.

Tomorrow, Sarajevo. Saturday, Austria. Tuesday, back to London. And a couple weeks later, beautiful Vancouver: home. The waking hours are going to be good!

The Day Texas Sank To The Bottom Of The Sea

I'm homeless in two weeks.

I'm jobless in four weeks.

Worst of all: I've fallen - am falling - for someone.

Damn.

There's absolutely no certainty in my life right now. Everything after September is completely unclear, completely unknown. This is terrifying on so many levels -- where am I going to live? how am I going support myself? am I getting closer or further towards a break, towards success, my goals? But there's a lot to be said for this uncertainty. There's so much beauty in the unknown, so much to learn and be inspired by if you can throw yourself fully into that universal ebb-and-flow of change and transition.

Things are going to come to me, things are going to happen. I feel like I'm at the cusp of transition, after a year in limbo. I need to keep my chin up now, keeping searching and fighting and hoping. And we'll see where the cards fall, come September.

Regardless, I'll do the best I can at playing my hand.

Not this again.

Thinking about not thinking about you counts as not thinking about you, right? Kind of? No?

Balls.