taking a walk
At first i thought my current ennui was being stuck in immigration limbo again, or because i was facing the dread of returning to work after a long break... But actually i think it's because i am sharing my living space. Yes, it's with probably my best friend, someone who appreciates privacy and solitude as much as i do... We have no problem with long periods of silence, both tapping away on a computer. Sometimes she disappears into her bedroom, or i do, for hours, because we're in that mood, and oh well. Even still, i am incredibly conscious of the fact that i am living in someone else's space, surviving on their charity. Even though i contribute to groceries, this is not a space that i paid for, this is not a space that is mine. I will forever owe her for this time. It makes me feel dependent in a way i am extremely uncomfortable with. Frankly, it triggers my depression, and i have felt the curling dark edges of wanting to end my life... As you do. This is exactly the reason why i realized i could never be in a relationship ever again, and i could never share a home with anyone ever again. Not feeling like i have my own independence and freedom is the chink in my armor, it's what allows the demon of manic depression to get in and destroy my life. The only way i can remain sane is to remain alone, unattached and uncommitted. Hell is other people.
Of course, i am not physically trapped in a room with a woman and her bird. I can leave whenever i want. Unfortunately, that's when being in this town - and on a broader level, this part of Canada - gets to me as well. Windsor is directly across the river from Detroit. And this whole section of North America is essentially one giant bog, one that is nowadays mostly drained for farmland. From Montreal to Winnipeg, from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis, it's just endless fucking soggy plains and piddly hills, ticks and flies and trees and rust and depression. It's got to be the worst part of Turtle Island - all the miserable swampiness of The South without the temperate winter and tasty food. The Great Lakes themselves are indeed pretty great, but the cities that sit on them are sprawling and cold, always looking more grand from a distance than they actually end up being when you get close. The whole region feels bleak to me, which i know might sound strange coming from someone who finds the dry prairies and deserts to have a certain appeal, but what can i say? People like what they like, and this i don't like.
Wednesday i took a walk. There is a group of small wilderness parks close to the end of the highway where the new Gordie Howe bridge to the US is being built. It's about 10km away from downtown. On the north side of the highway there is a garbage hill. Unlike the garbage hill in Winnipeg, it's not actually called Garbage Hill, but my local friend told me that it used to be a garbage dump, and now it is the only hill for miles around. That's where i took this photo, looking back at the downtown area of Detroit/Windsor. About 5 of the highrises are on the Windsor side, the rest are Detroit. But more notable is the huge expanse of suburban fucking nothing in between where i was standing and the downtown. It's just single family homes and "six-pack" apartments for miles and miles and miles. Walkable neighborhoods? Well, i suppose they are technically walkable since i walked through them to get to the garbage hill. But many of them do not have sidewalks, and when they do they're only on one side of the road. There are zero neighborhood shops, everything is clustered around shopping malls and parking lots. Almost everybody drives. I walked for 5 hours that day and saw two buses, total. Granted, i was walking right out to the edge of town where most people don't want to go because there is nothing there, but that's kind of the point.
All that said, the parks at the other end were worthwhile. Yes, they were as damp and overgrown with trees and ferns as expected. Nowhere dry to sit down. Nowhere to cast your eyes across a vast horizon. But i heard birds in the trees and saw squirrels hurrying around and frogs plopping into the ponds. It was good to get out to nature, even if it's not my preferred kind of nature.
I found myself fighting back tears, though, walking through the endless suburbs. It's such a grotesque form of urban planning, it literally pains me to walk through it. I find it so depressing, it makes me lose hope in the future of humanity.
I tried to cheer myself up by visiting the Chinese grocery store on the way back and bought some 辣條 spicy gluten jerky and my favorite 茉莉蜜茶 sweet tea. Also coconut buns. Then the next day i spent all day bundled in my bedroll playing games and watching shows.
After getting out of the funk i decided to do another depressing thing - explore my junk that has been living in R's basement storage unit for the past 9 years. When i left Canada i actually tried to get rid of most of my books, comics and CDs, but even then the digital revolution was fully in swing and nobody really wanted them - not even as free donations. In her basement i have two boxes of comics, two boxes of CDs, one box of books, and two boxes of "other".
The boxes of "other" include ornaments and memory boxes, which was what i went through on Friday. The ornaments that were cheap seasonal trash i just dumped. The ornaments that are slightly more valuable or unique i will donate to charity. I also already put my electric guitar, dumbek drum, distortion box and a stack of audio cables in the charity box. And all of my soft toys that i didn't have since childhood.
The memory boxes, though. That's an interesting one. I remember when i was a teenager i regularly purged stuff as part of our family's penchant for making international moves. I didn't keep much of anything except for the most sentimental treasures of all, which were few enough to fit in the corner of a suitcase. But i remember talking to T - my first long-term girlfriend - about this, when she was sharing with me a box of treasures from her childhood, and she convinced me to restart the memory box thing.
But now, 10 years after the last time i put anything into a memory box, i realize they are mostly kinda useless. I had ticket stubs and flyers from events i went to, scraps of paper and coasters and matchboxes where someone had scribbled on a nice message, receipts from visiting restaurants on apparently meaningful days, old boarding passes, random rocks that i presume i picked up on a romantic walk with someone but now have no idea who or when it was... And, yeah, fuck. Memory boxes don't do shit to restore your memory. If it was important, you remembered it. If it wasn't, you didn't. I had boxes full of stuff that theoretically were supposed to remind me of happy times with former friends and partners, but none of the stuff actually reminded me of anything that i didn't already remember. And the rest reminded me of nothing because i have no idea what the context was. So i junked almost all of it.
What has been kept? Very little. Almost all of the birthday, Halloween and Christmas cards that T ever sent me. She adored finding cards, and always wrote romantic little notes in them, notes that still break my fucking heart to read 20 years later. She really was my "one true love", insofar as that's a thing. From M i kept a bunch of stuff that reminds me that we were probably always better friends than lovers - candy bracelets from the raves we went to, a bingo ball that we swiped from a drag bingo night, a shot glass from our trip up to the snow after we broke up, that sort of thing. And from J i kept a scrapbook that she made for me when she still lived in Canada and i in Australia. And for myself, i have some cuddly toys and ornaments that i had since my early childhood. And some jewelry that i will never wear again that reminds me of specific phases in my life. Plus all the photos i could find with pictures of me and my social groups of yore. And that's it. Memory boxes are not really for me.
By the end of this, i will have just a single suitcase of stuff that is important to me. I still need to find a way to get rid of the CDs (many of which i already digitized) and the comics and books. I have emailed a few local shops to see if they'll take them. Unfortunately there was a flood in the basement several years ago and some of the framed pictures i had were irreversibly damaged, including two leather etchings from the 19th century that my father gave to me for safekeeping. But such is life. I still have a portrait T painted of a younger me, a picture M painted of a trippy desert landscape and my prized Patrick Nagel print. I suppose i'll just keep those in the basement since they're not worth anything to anyone else. Maybe one day i'll have a house again where i can hang them? Fuck, who knows. I hate stuff.
The fact my stuff has been in R's basement for so long is another thing that makes me feel stressed out, like i owe her. She told me she doesn't give a shit because she doesn't use the storage unit anyway, so it's no big deal. But, you know, it's how my brain works. Simply knowing that i am depending on someone to hold my shit - even when it's mostly shit i don't even want - it makes me feel beholden, trapped, not free.
So the past weeks have been a constant battle of trying to keep my sanity. I'm not doing great, but i'm doing the best i can. And soon, i suppose, i will be back in Taiwan, in my own place, doing work that doesn't especially thrill me, but at least it'll be funding my independence.
Funnily enough, while i was typing this entry, OneDrive popped up a notification of "remember 5 years ago?"
This was taken when i was in Taiwan. June 12, 2017. Yes, it's the middle of nowhere. Yes, that's a bus. Pretty much says it all.
Of course, i am not physically trapped in a room with a woman and her bird. I can leave whenever i want. Unfortunately, that's when being in this town - and on a broader level, this part of Canada - gets to me as well. Windsor is directly across the river from Detroit. And this whole section of North America is essentially one giant bog, one that is nowadays mostly drained for farmland. From Montreal to Winnipeg, from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis, it's just endless fucking soggy plains and piddly hills, ticks and flies and trees and rust and depression. It's got to be the worst part of Turtle Island - all the miserable swampiness of The South without the temperate winter and tasty food. The Great Lakes themselves are indeed pretty great, but the cities that sit on them are sprawling and cold, always looking more grand from a distance than they actually end up being when you get close. The whole region feels bleak to me, which i know might sound strange coming from someone who finds the dry prairies and deserts to have a certain appeal, but what can i say? People like what they like, and this i don't like.
Wednesday i took a walk. There is a group of small wilderness parks close to the end of the highway where the new Gordie Howe bridge to the US is being built. It's about 10km away from downtown. On the north side of the highway there is a garbage hill. Unlike the garbage hill in Winnipeg, it's not actually called Garbage Hill, but my local friend told me that it used to be a garbage dump, and now it is the only hill for miles around. That's where i took this photo, looking back at the downtown area of Detroit/Windsor. About 5 of the highrises are on the Windsor side, the rest are Detroit. But more notable is the huge expanse of suburban fucking nothing in between where i was standing and the downtown. It's just single family homes and "six-pack" apartments for miles and miles and miles. Walkable neighborhoods? Well, i suppose they are technically walkable since i walked through them to get to the garbage hill. But many of them do not have sidewalks, and when they do they're only on one side of the road. There are zero neighborhood shops, everything is clustered around shopping malls and parking lots. Almost everybody drives. I walked for 5 hours that day and saw two buses, total. Granted, i was walking right out to the edge of town where most people don't want to go because there is nothing there, but that's kind of the point.
All that said, the parks at the other end were worthwhile. Yes, they were as damp and overgrown with trees and ferns as expected. Nowhere dry to sit down. Nowhere to cast your eyes across a vast horizon. But i heard birds in the trees and saw squirrels hurrying around and frogs plopping into the ponds. It was good to get out to nature, even if it's not my preferred kind of nature.
I found myself fighting back tears, though, walking through the endless suburbs. It's such a grotesque form of urban planning, it literally pains me to walk through it. I find it so depressing, it makes me lose hope in the future of humanity.
I tried to cheer myself up by visiting the Chinese grocery store on the way back and bought some 辣條 spicy gluten jerky and my favorite 茉莉蜜茶 sweet tea. Also coconut buns. Then the next day i spent all day bundled in my bedroll playing games and watching shows.
After getting out of the funk i decided to do another depressing thing - explore my junk that has been living in R's basement storage unit for the past 9 years. When i left Canada i actually tried to get rid of most of my books, comics and CDs, but even then the digital revolution was fully in swing and nobody really wanted them - not even as free donations. In her basement i have two boxes of comics, two boxes of CDs, one box of books, and two boxes of "other".
The boxes of "other" include ornaments and memory boxes, which was what i went through on Friday. The ornaments that were cheap seasonal trash i just dumped. The ornaments that are slightly more valuable or unique i will donate to charity. I also already put my electric guitar, dumbek drum, distortion box and a stack of audio cables in the charity box. And all of my soft toys that i didn't have since childhood.
The memory boxes, though. That's an interesting one. I remember when i was a teenager i regularly purged stuff as part of our family's penchant for making international moves. I didn't keep much of anything except for the most sentimental treasures of all, which were few enough to fit in the corner of a suitcase. But i remember talking to T - my first long-term girlfriend - about this, when she was sharing with me a box of treasures from her childhood, and she convinced me to restart the memory box thing.
But now, 10 years after the last time i put anything into a memory box, i realize they are mostly kinda useless. I had ticket stubs and flyers from events i went to, scraps of paper and coasters and matchboxes where someone had scribbled on a nice message, receipts from visiting restaurants on apparently meaningful days, old boarding passes, random rocks that i presume i picked up on a romantic walk with someone but now have no idea who or when it was... And, yeah, fuck. Memory boxes don't do shit to restore your memory. If it was important, you remembered it. If it wasn't, you didn't. I had boxes full of stuff that theoretically were supposed to remind me of happy times with former friends and partners, but none of the stuff actually reminded me of anything that i didn't already remember. And the rest reminded me of nothing because i have no idea what the context was. So i junked almost all of it.
What has been kept? Very little. Almost all of the birthday, Halloween and Christmas cards that T ever sent me. She adored finding cards, and always wrote romantic little notes in them, notes that still break my fucking heart to read 20 years later. She really was my "one true love", insofar as that's a thing. From M i kept a bunch of stuff that reminds me that we were probably always better friends than lovers - candy bracelets from the raves we went to, a bingo ball that we swiped from a drag bingo night, a shot glass from our trip up to the snow after we broke up, that sort of thing. And from J i kept a scrapbook that she made for me when she still lived in Canada and i in Australia. And for myself, i have some cuddly toys and ornaments that i had since my early childhood. And some jewelry that i will never wear again that reminds me of specific phases in my life. Plus all the photos i could find with pictures of me and my social groups of yore. And that's it. Memory boxes are not really for me.
By the end of this, i will have just a single suitcase of stuff that is important to me. I still need to find a way to get rid of the CDs (many of which i already digitized) and the comics and books. I have emailed a few local shops to see if they'll take them. Unfortunately there was a flood in the basement several years ago and some of the framed pictures i had were irreversibly damaged, including two leather etchings from the 19th century that my father gave to me for safekeeping. But such is life. I still have a portrait T painted of a younger me, a picture M painted of a trippy desert landscape and my prized Patrick Nagel print. I suppose i'll just keep those in the basement since they're not worth anything to anyone else. Maybe one day i'll have a house again where i can hang them? Fuck, who knows. I hate stuff.
The fact my stuff has been in R's basement for so long is another thing that makes me feel stressed out, like i owe her. She told me she doesn't give a shit because she doesn't use the storage unit anyway, so it's no big deal. But, you know, it's how my brain works. Simply knowing that i am depending on someone to hold my shit - even when it's mostly shit i don't even want - it makes me feel beholden, trapped, not free.
So the past weeks have been a constant battle of trying to keep my sanity. I'm not doing great, but i'm doing the best i can. And soon, i suppose, i will be back in Taiwan, in my own place, doing work that doesn't especially thrill me, but at least it'll be funding my independence.
Funnily enough, while i was typing this entry, OneDrive popped up a notification of "remember 5 years ago?"
This was taken when i was in Taiwan. June 12, 2017. Yes, it's the middle of nowhere. Yes, that's a bus. Pretty much says it all.