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knights_say_nihCh 1-
Love at First Sight.
I think I’ve decided that love at first sight is possible.
Not as what people think it is, no trumpets or arrows or any shit like that, but in seeing something so absolutely perfect that you fall in love with it… it’s something I’ve experienced, and believe in it.
It’s not like the guy was remotely attractive. He must have been late twenties, a hippie, sort of scruffy looking, and hair down his back in a pony tail. I couldn’t actually see his face; I was about a hundred meters away. But still, I fell completely, absolutely and heat stoppingly in love with him. There wasn’t, as the cliché goes, any sense or reason to it, but there you are. If I spoke with him in a normal day to day situation I would probably never have thought twice about it.
It’s safe to say that the reason I fell in love was the situation. Stanley Park is somewhere that, after only a day of walking about, snapping photos and wading in and out of the tide, I was completely in love with it. I’d spent the afternoon alternating between being alone and being with my father, which are about as much polar opposite as you can get. I’ll tell you more about that later.
But, there life went. I had sand in my flip flops, grass in my hair, and a long crepe skirt tucked up around my hips. I’d have given a minister (or my mother) a heart attack, but it was run-of-the-mill for a hot day in Vancouver. After spending the first hour of my father’s nap in the solitude of the trees, I made my way slowly down to the shore. I had, at that point, every intention of taking pictures of the flotsam washed up on the beach.
It was crowded, but not terribly so. We were having what qualified as a cold summer. The girls had hung up their bikinis and fled, the boys who were there for said scenery with them. While the glittering youth and university students of the city were off, be it with exams or with their own form of entertainment, I had the Third Beach nearly to myself. The space was abandoned to me, and the serious tanners.
The Serious Tanners are the group of people, all over fifty, tied to BC for either sentimental or family reasons. They lay themselves out on the beach like strips of old leather in hopes of absorbing what weak sun they can, miserable in the knowledge that a month here is a day in Florida: garish bathing suits and cracked skin and towels that you must not step on for fear of death.
I wended my way through the mire of Hawaii hopefuls, down to the edge of the beach where the water makes quiet love to the shore. Tossed up and dragged back into the blue rotate a pastiche of oddities. An unfortunately deceased crab, a rather hypothermic shade of blue washes, oddly enough, a few feet away from a similar one, though the bright red colour tells the tale of an unsuccessful journey from sea to pot to plate to scraps to water again. And then full circle, sucked back into the water, shell clattering softly against the driftwood as it’s swept out of sight of my camera.
Being who I am, I took a picture of the carcasses on their journey out, immortalizing them in the digital memory of my camera (memory fresh cleared, its very own traumatic experience. Note to self: remind father that the family camera is not for use as a sex toy.) Each moment snapped to be uploaded, downloaded, drawn on, and printed off, in the shuffle of electronics. The memory use rises, the battery power falls, and the ocean keeps rolling as I do my best to capture each and every thing tossed towards my now numb feet.
Feeling rather like someone throwing the first handful of earth onto a coffin, after an hour the pain of the chill in my feet became too much for even the most willing to suffer for their art. So the crab’s wake is over, the water is bid goodbye, and I exited the surf, shaking off my feet and stepping onto sandy flip flops. I re-tucked the edge of my salt stained skirt back into the belt I’d just got used to wearing for that purpose, and began to walk.
I was reflecting, as I recall, on my sexuality. Staying with my gay uncle, being away from my mother, and the horrible discovery of PlayGirl magazines in my bedroom (probably has something to do with the fact that I was staying with my gay uncle) coupled with the nightmare moment with a digital camera had left me considering. The bikini girls had fled, leaving me to my own semi-intact self esteem, wandering in public with bare legs and a wide smile. On reflection, I think had something to do with the fact that I was beside the water. Aphrodite, Ocean Born, flitting into my thoughts and out just as easily. The argument I’d had with my mother about whether bisexuality was, in fact ‘gross.’ The girl (the one and only girl) I’d wanted to kiss, then the boy who’d completely driven her out of my mind when I had kissed him, the way my lipstick tasted and pointlessing to myself as to whether or not he’d like it, because I’m never going to see him again.
And then, bam. Love at first sight.
He (he’ll be known throughout as He) was lying on what amounted to, effectively, an island. A small piste of sand which the ocean had welled behind. He was, at first sight, asleep, and I’d snapped three pictures before I realized he was awake behind his heavily tinted out of fashion sunglasses and denim hat. His jeans were still rolled up to his knees, presumably from his pilgrimage out to the little spittoon of land. The waves were breaking before they reached him, making him at first glance to be some sort of Moses, parting the Pacific Ocean, as it were.
Resting easily on his thin, denim covered chest was a comfortably battered wooden guitar, the sort that looked well loved, well used, and happy to be the tool to his senseless playing. I couldn’t hear the sounds above the rise and swell of the water, but from the idle movements of his fingers I could tell it wasn’t anything coherent. Sound for the sake of sound, for the sake of creation.
He was living the way I wanted. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to be on a small piece of sand where my ranting mother, my overbearing father, my playgirl uncle, my girl, my boy, where none of them could get to me. I wanted to be able to play what I want without thought for others ears. I wanted to listen to the roaring swell of the ocean and not have to worry about the carcasses washing in it. I wanted him to sit up and call me onto his island and pull me down and kiss me right there. Right there where the old strips of leather enjoying their tans wouldn’t see, because their gaze was fastened on the sky.
That’s how I fell in love. With the man who had what I wanted. Maybe I thought if he loved me, he could give it to me.
Love at First Sight.
I think I’ve decided that love at first sight is possible.
Not as what people think it is, no trumpets or arrows or any shit like that, but in seeing something so absolutely perfect that you fall in love with it… it’s something I’ve experienced, and believe in it.
It’s not like the guy was remotely attractive. He must have been late twenties, a hippie, sort of scruffy looking, and hair down his back in a pony tail. I couldn’t actually see his face; I was about a hundred meters away. But still, I fell completely, absolutely and heat stoppingly in love with him. There wasn’t, as the cliché goes, any sense or reason to it, but there you are. If I spoke with him in a normal day to day situation I would probably never have thought twice about it.
It’s safe to say that the reason I fell in love was the situation. Stanley Park is somewhere that, after only a day of walking about, snapping photos and wading in and out of the tide, I was completely in love with it. I’d spent the afternoon alternating between being alone and being with my father, which are about as much polar opposite as you can get. I’ll tell you more about that later.
But, there life went. I had sand in my flip flops, grass in my hair, and a long crepe skirt tucked up around my hips. I’d have given a minister (or my mother) a heart attack, but it was run-of-the-mill for a hot day in Vancouver. After spending the first hour of my father’s nap in the solitude of the trees, I made my way slowly down to the shore. I had, at that point, every intention of taking pictures of the flotsam washed up on the beach.
It was crowded, but not terribly so. We were having what qualified as a cold summer. The girls had hung up their bikinis and fled, the boys who were there for said scenery with them. While the glittering youth and university students of the city were off, be it with exams or with their own form of entertainment, I had the Third Beach nearly to myself. The space was abandoned to me, and the serious tanners.
The Serious Tanners are the group of people, all over fifty, tied to BC for either sentimental or family reasons. They lay themselves out on the beach like strips of old leather in hopes of absorbing what weak sun they can, miserable in the knowledge that a month here is a day in Florida: garish bathing suits and cracked skin and towels that you must not step on for fear of death.
I wended my way through the mire of Hawaii hopefuls, down to the edge of the beach where the water makes quiet love to the shore. Tossed up and dragged back into the blue rotate a pastiche of oddities. An unfortunately deceased crab, a rather hypothermic shade of blue washes, oddly enough, a few feet away from a similar one, though the bright red colour tells the tale of an unsuccessful journey from sea to pot to plate to scraps to water again. And then full circle, sucked back into the water, shell clattering softly against the driftwood as it’s swept out of sight of my camera.
Being who I am, I took a picture of the carcasses on their journey out, immortalizing them in the digital memory of my camera (memory fresh cleared, its very own traumatic experience. Note to self: remind father that the family camera is not for use as a sex toy.) Each moment snapped to be uploaded, downloaded, drawn on, and printed off, in the shuffle of electronics. The memory use rises, the battery power falls, and the ocean keeps rolling as I do my best to capture each and every thing tossed towards my now numb feet.
Feeling rather like someone throwing the first handful of earth onto a coffin, after an hour the pain of the chill in my feet became too much for even the most willing to suffer for their art. So the crab’s wake is over, the water is bid goodbye, and I exited the surf, shaking off my feet and stepping onto sandy flip flops. I re-tucked the edge of my salt stained skirt back into the belt I’d just got used to wearing for that purpose, and began to walk.
I was reflecting, as I recall, on my sexuality. Staying with my gay uncle, being away from my mother, and the horrible discovery of PlayGirl magazines in my bedroom (probably has something to do with the fact that I was staying with my gay uncle) coupled with the nightmare moment with a digital camera had left me considering. The bikini girls had fled, leaving me to my own semi-intact self esteem, wandering in public with bare legs and a wide smile. On reflection, I think had something to do with the fact that I was beside the water. Aphrodite, Ocean Born, flitting into my thoughts and out just as easily. The argument I’d had with my mother about whether bisexuality was, in fact ‘gross.’ The girl (the one and only girl) I’d wanted to kiss, then the boy who’d completely driven her out of my mind when I had kissed him, the way my lipstick tasted and pointlessing to myself as to whether or not he’d like it, because I’m never going to see him again.
And then, bam. Love at first sight.
He (he’ll be known throughout as He) was lying on what amounted to, effectively, an island. A small piste of sand which the ocean had welled behind. He was, at first sight, asleep, and I’d snapped three pictures before I realized he was awake behind his heavily tinted out of fashion sunglasses and denim hat. His jeans were still rolled up to his knees, presumably from his pilgrimage out to the little spittoon of land. The waves were breaking before they reached him, making him at first glance to be some sort of Moses, parting the Pacific Ocean, as it were.
Resting easily on his thin, denim covered chest was a comfortably battered wooden guitar, the sort that looked well loved, well used, and happy to be the tool to his senseless playing. I couldn’t hear the sounds above the rise and swell of the water, but from the idle movements of his fingers I could tell it wasn’t anything coherent. Sound for the sake of sound, for the sake of creation.
He was living the way I wanted. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to be on a small piece of sand where my ranting mother, my overbearing father, my playgirl uncle, my girl, my boy, where none of them could get to me. I wanted to be able to play what I want without thought for others ears. I wanted to listen to the roaring swell of the ocean and not have to worry about the carcasses washing in it. I wanted him to sit up and call me onto his island and pull me down and kiss me right there. Right there where the old strips of leather enjoying their tans wouldn’t see, because their gaze was fastened on the sky.
That’s how I fell in love. With the man who had what I wanted. Maybe I thought if he loved me, he could give it to me.
