BURNING THE OLD YEAR
so much of any year is flammable
—naomi shihab nye
JANUARY
january was new york, montreal, toronto, chicago, santa cruz, san francisco, portland, seattle. on the way I met backpackers, film students, activists, other australians, hippies, grandmothers, girl scouts, entrepreneurs, google employees, artists, good ol’ kentucky boys and etc
it was a month living out of suitcases, swapping life stories and addresses, retracing steps and burying hard truths. by the end of the month I couldn’t remember who I was. I rode one final greyhound back to vancouver, and as we crossed the border my phone picked up reception and flashed the texts my canadian friends sent. “come home, we miss you.”
my flight to sydney was scheduled for the following week; instead I shucked off my worn boots and said “I’m staying.” and I did.
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FEBRUARY
february was moving into my own place but still living out of suitcases, teaching english to koreans, promoting theatre productions, reviewing shows every week and wondering if I’d made the right decision.
it was also olympic fever, during one of the wettest winters in vancouver’s recent history. I cheered for every team except the australian one.
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MARCH
march was for spring and sunlight and bloom, main street bookstores and granville at midnight and holding hands on sixth avenue.
during this time I really thought about what was right and what was easy. it was the first time I came to terms with it that year, but it wasn’t the last.
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APRIL
april was for dance parties and camping and henna and things clicking into place and burying that restless sensation. everything was perfect, so why was I waking up at 3am crying my eyes out?
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MAY
may was for moving in with my birds nest family. it was all about the hookahs and the hookers, cranky cats, crazy drug dealers, socially inept musicians, caffeine-fuelled dress-up parties, beery hikes, housemate incest, crafternoons, bike rides with burlesque dancers in chinatown. you name it: we did it.
but all good things come to an end. the others went back to long-distance loves or moved to an english farm, I chose to come home and rediscover the meaning of family. our last day together I demanded we all wear mustaches and animal masks: I forgot I was wearing mine until airport security pointed it out. we held each other at the terminal and said “remember this forever.” I cried. when I left the country, a part of me stayed behind.
—
where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
—
JUNE
the moment the plane taxied onto the landing strip I looked outside the window to the sight of grey tarmac and thought “I’ve made a mistake, I don’t belong here.” it was a gutpunch sensation that took the rest of the year to recover from.
sydney was cold and damp and every breath felt like drowning. I missed vancouver, I missed the life I had there, I blamed everyone else for such a letdown of a city. coming home felt like failure.
around this time I switched cameras and started thinking really hard about memory and the means we employ to preserve it. I stopped eating meat. I felt old friends were judgemental of the decisions I’d made. I lived at home, amongst the reminders of my old life, and felt trapped. my best friend offered me a room in her ex-brothel sharehouse but I was broke (an ongoing theme in my life). I couldn’t see a way out.
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JULY
I counted off each day in july with increasing impatience, waiting to snap out of my moods and get on with life. I measured self-annoyance by the severity of my haircuts. my bedhead was amazing but I was increasingly unhinged.
it was a time when everyone felt raw and exposed, and new friendships were forged. we made lists and distracted ourselves with zinemaking parties, mustaches, breadmaking, macaronage, christmas in july, painting city skyline chalkboard murals, swapping complex theoretical arguments and watching each other for signs of feral eyes.
things were coming together. but at that point we still couldn’t see the forest for the trees.
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AUGUST
in august the grove numbers grew. we were broke and so we stayed home, drank cheap wine, listened to old records and slept in each others’ beds. we were loose and easy with our gestures: arms slung over shoulders, fingers running through hair, grounding our fractured personalities in affection.
but I could never get used to the cold and the damp, my body was tuned to canadian summers. I couldn’t shake off the sense I was living the wrong season. meanwhile I accepted hibernation, swapped clothes, swallowed static, slept and buried restlessness in nostalgia.
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SEPTEMBER
I honestly don’t remember much of september. I drank too much and partied too much, let my mouth run away from me and slipped into too many intense conversations. the end result was uneven and unexpected, but only because I chose to bury thoughts and impulses in the darker recesses of memory. if I’d been more perceptive, I might not have been caught so off-guard.
you know, there were good points. picnics and cafes and secret bars, bookthrifting and refurbishing, meeting new people and getting to know older friends better. and yet I was still restless and prone to mood swings, solitary walks at midnight and spilling secrets to strangers. I learned that grovekids operate on different rules to other social circles. one thing doesn’t transfer easily to another: if you do try, you’ll have yourself some explaining to do.
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OCTOBER
october was for reflection. we escaped to newcastle (y’all) but found the sydney hipsterati had followed us there for TINA. I grubbed around the zine fair but the people and the noise and the showiness of it all distressed me: instead we made for a nearby park and carved a grove away from grove.
on the ride back to sydney I wrote a lengthy analysis of the day in my notebook and decided to keep it there. we can only trade the truth when it’s written down.
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NOVEMBER
“how ‘ye doin’? I’m survivin’”
kanye dropped his tracks around this time, which is just as well because I really needed something to believe in and his music fit the bill. five months of unemployment and directionless discontent had manifested itself into multiple jobs and creative projects, with the intention of staying in uni and seeing where honours would lead. it was a lot to take in! I was having difficulty on that front.
previous stressbusting tactics wouldn’t work, I’d learned too much and become too self-aware (too cynical) to employ them. the answer was to retreat into work and silence, punctuated by repeat kanye listening. I let his lyrics wrap themselves around my head and frame my worldview. the grovekids delivered a rendition of ‘monster’ at a poetry reading night. I started listening to ghetto music.
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DECEMBER
“at the end of day, goddammit, I’m killin’ this shit”
this was the month I started to feel better about myself. in between work and sleep and projects, I still dipped into black rage. I still wanted to cut off my hair. half the grove kids shaved their heads and facial hair in a communal cleansing process. but we seemed a lot happier, more settled—at least until later this year, when most of the crew take off for unknown climes.
new year, new camera, new plans. step out into midday heat. take a deep breath, dry out your lungs, wonder how your friends are faring overseas. this time last year I was walking through snow, leaping from one city to another with a vague sense of direction. battered on all sides by Experience, I withdrew and cut off ties and nursed my bruises. now that I’ve processed them all I can look everything over, watch patterns emerge, the black spots that no amount of mental scrubbing can erase. only thing you can do is learn from them.
it’s hard to quantify what, exactly, happened in 2010 to make it worthwhile. eventful? sure. it’s easier to consider what I learned from them (a backlog of grey morals) and I appreciate having the self-awareness now to ‘figure shit out’ better. I have a few regrets, but these centre on missed opportunities in my time away rather than anything that actually happened. these, too, stem from the restlessness that colours my life. 2011: the year of curbing wanderlust. things are happening, and I’ll make more happen. and maybe this time next year I’ll be somewhere in snow again, moving from city to city with slightly more direction.
quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
