A serious day

Woke up in the morning feeling like J Didion: nervous, wrist against forehead, prone to deliberate gestures and elliptical pop culture references. Because I had just moved into my friends’ house and because I was the first one awake and uncertain how the hierarchy of morning rituals unfold, I made a pot of tea and left it to stew while I opened my email inbox, closed it, opened it again. Two of my housemates are new lovers. Through the thin walls: silence. I am wearing a dress bought in a Sydney vintage store. It is red and I smooth my hand over stray ink left from a time when I was convinced words would save the world. Failing that: my soul. (Itemised list of things saved so far: 1. A small stand of trees from a future in moleskine journals. 2. The bother.)

On the commute to work I thought of the two cats curled up on the absent roomie’s bed. They are so desperate for affection they will claw their way onto my lap, convinced their owner will not return and settling for my non-thrilling presence. It was irksome and prompted much self-analysis, so I buried this thought in the same place I keep old shame. The kitties can hold on for two more days when K comes home. I’ll hold on for a little longer, then I go home.

Every day we correct students on common mistakes they make in conversation. Look, it rains: incorrect. The present simple tense is not used for temporary situations that will go away. Use the present continuous to describe situations which are happening now but will change soon in the future: Look, it’s raining. Look, it’s sunshining. Swallowing Konglish phrases with the third cup of coffee.

More students have enrolled for the summer season, so the low buzz of voices in partitioned classrooms have reached a solid mid-range hum. Because of new faces taking the place of old favourites, and because it reminded me of my last shift next week, I retreated into a corner, into myself, for the silence and concentration needed to write a goodbye letter. This is the fourth such letter I’ve written in as many days; E was tearful over cheesecake until we started our favourite game of character assassination. The return of borrowed clothing triggered the farewell sequence: goodbye, hug, goodbye, hug, hug, goodbye. Goodbye. I walked back to work and I felt my old boots fray with each step. 

M adopted the new teacher and discussed workplace politics and how to deal with randy students. In return she took us to a Persian tea parlour where we smoked shisha and drank chai and the owner tried to convince me to bellydance for him.

With D’s friends we discussed world politics and how to deal with cultural diaspora. Go back to Lebanon, says the girl with the name of a Sufi poet. Go back to Indonesia. Fill the hole in your heart. She knew what it felt like, this staggering sense of loss. To fall outside the rubric of the white man’s commonwealth. To visit your homeland and be called foreign by your kin. Tourist, outsider, North American scum. Nine months in this city has left the trace of a drawl and the urge to pronounce all syllables. I walk on the right hand side. I apologise for everything. I’m not sure in which country I’m supposed to file my tax returns.

I swallowed floral smoke and let my thoughts drift. Look, it aches: Because yesterday I bought tickets to an LCD Soundsystem show at home, and because I know several old and important friends will be there, and because I remembered how much The Sound of Silver was the initial soundtrack for my time abroad, and because I’m tired and uncertain and I’m smoking a hookah like I never would have done while in Sydney, I wondered how much I’ve changed. If I really want to go home. If I know where home is anymore. Vancouver I love you, but you’re bringing me down.

Today I learned how to say ‘I don’t know how to speak your language’ in Arabic and Spanish. (Number of languages in which I can now say this sentence: 7. Number of times I expect to be able to say it: 0.) Old language came back to me as I spoke fragments of German and Italian and Bahasa, dredged from the same place where high school literary knowledge sank and which occasionally irrupts into pop culture conversation. This is where I should be, I decided, leading a polyglot existence amongst fierce intellectuals carving out their own sense of self. Go home, go home, go home—all three of them. ”I like your dress,” says one girl. “Where did you get it from?” 

On the train ride late at night I saw all the old neon signs that usher you into East Van. Welcome home, I thought. Then I walked back to the house and changed my shoes and put another pot of tea on the stove and waited for the last roomie to come home and change the kitty litter box. The future, I thought. It’s coming.