the spaces inbetween
I met this woman today who I don't think I'll ever see again and I can't remember her name but it was like seeing someone so welcoming, I must have had a look in my eyes because it made her a bit flustered I've been trying to remember her name since we parted company I even went to my friend Joey's myspace in the hopes of traking it down but that's when I realised it would be like trying to pick out a familliar face at a masquerade ball.
I went to visit Joey because he's getting his lungs drained because has really bad pneumonia. I was worried about bringing my nearly recovered sick ass into the chest ward of VGH but there were sars masks at the door. I entered his room and she was sitting on the windowsill reading a book about Wounded Knee. Joey was in the middle of something with a band mate, he was really weak from his illness. I was introduced to everyone and spent some time with him in the hospital room. I had to go see another friend at 8 so after a spell I said my goodbyes. Turning around I screwed up all my courage and asked her for her number. she said she wasn't in that space and then as I was getting my things to go she bliurted out that this was the first time she'd ever told a guy that and then got flustered again because she couldn't think of why she would have said it aloud like that.
I told her that it was cool and that maybe I'd see her around. I told Joey that I'd come back on Tuesaday and I'd bring my guitar and some CD's for him, I have to buy some blank CD's now.
I really hope she's there again in tuesday I still want her number but I don't want her to give it to me right away. I'd be happy to just meet her again. I think that if I do see her again I'll ask her to lunch, I think I would be very happy to get to know who this woman is, God willing I'll have that opportunity one day.
I went to see the CR Avery band later, it was a really good show, I saw so many old friends, a jazz musician I knew from highschool, a distant cousin, another old friend. After the show I tool the longest way home. I bicycled through the downtown east side deliberatly going to the saddest places. I want to open a house of hospitality here I need to know what the wound in this city looks like, what it feels like, how it affects me to be there.
It was a strange and intimate experience like seeing the scars on a survivor of physical abuse. I saw parts of Skid Row and rode down streets I didn't know existed I saw patches of deep misery and patches of gentrification, Gentrification is a lot like a city re-colonizing itself. First the land was stolen to build the city, then the least in the city find a place where they can live, or where the city will allow them to live, and then over time the rich of the city decide that they want that part for themselves so they send in the developers andthe developers turn warehouses into trendy loft apartements. Then the business people move in and turn old storefronts into chique clubs playing up the "rough part of town" allure that they are selling and the next thing you know the whole strip looks nice and renewed, the streets are cleaner, better lit, the buildings are no longer neglected and new life comes to the hood. Only the new life is not that of the previous residents. Gentrification is re-colonization because it re-claims the poor and working class areas for the rich by forcing the old comunity to move to new skid rows, gentrification is anti-community, it's renewal like losing an arm only to have a mouth grow in its place.
I rode through downtown and into Stanly Park thinking about this, I went down as close to the water at waterfront as I could go, I rode by the train tracks and through part of the park. Like I said it was intimate, it was examining a long hiden and poorly nursed wound or hearing the story of how a friend or lover got a particularly nasty scar... it was shy and sorrowful and I didn't want it to end as the bike took me back across the burrard bridge. I savoured the lights reflecting off the water and the stars above my head. There are no stars in LA, sometimes you can see the pole star but even that can be hidden by the light from the rubble.
I want to live here forever.
I went to visit Joey because he's getting his lungs drained because has really bad pneumonia. I was worried about bringing my nearly recovered sick ass into the chest ward of VGH but there were sars masks at the door. I entered his room and she was sitting on the windowsill reading a book about Wounded Knee. Joey was in the middle of something with a band mate, he was really weak from his illness. I was introduced to everyone and spent some time with him in the hospital room. I had to go see another friend at 8 so after a spell I said my goodbyes. Turning around I screwed up all my courage and asked her for her number. she said she wasn't in that space and then as I was getting my things to go she bliurted out that this was the first time she'd ever told a guy that and then got flustered again because she couldn't think of why she would have said it aloud like that.
I told her that it was cool and that maybe I'd see her around. I told Joey that I'd come back on Tuesaday and I'd bring my guitar and some CD's for him, I have to buy some blank CD's now.
I really hope she's there again in tuesday I still want her number but I don't want her to give it to me right away. I'd be happy to just meet her again. I think that if I do see her again I'll ask her to lunch, I think I would be very happy to get to know who this woman is, God willing I'll have that opportunity one day.
I went to see the CR Avery band later, it was a really good show, I saw so many old friends, a jazz musician I knew from highschool, a distant cousin, another old friend. After the show I tool the longest way home. I bicycled through the downtown east side deliberatly going to the saddest places. I want to open a house of hospitality here I need to know what the wound in this city looks like, what it feels like, how it affects me to be there.
It was a strange and intimate experience like seeing the scars on a survivor of physical abuse. I saw parts of Skid Row and rode down streets I didn't know existed I saw patches of deep misery and patches of gentrification, Gentrification is a lot like a city re-colonizing itself. First the land was stolen to build the city, then the least in the city find a place where they can live, or where the city will allow them to live, and then over time the rich of the city decide that they want that part for themselves so they send in the developers andthe developers turn warehouses into trendy loft apartements. Then the business people move in and turn old storefronts into chique clubs playing up the "rough part of town" allure that they are selling and the next thing you know the whole strip looks nice and renewed, the streets are cleaner, better lit, the buildings are no longer neglected and new life comes to the hood. Only the new life is not that of the previous residents. Gentrification is re-colonization because it re-claims the poor and working class areas for the rich by forcing the old comunity to move to new skid rows, gentrification is anti-community, it's renewal like losing an arm only to have a mouth grow in its place.
I rode through downtown and into Stanly Park thinking about this, I went down as close to the water at waterfront as I could go, I rode by the train tracks and through part of the park. Like I said it was intimate, it was examining a long hiden and poorly nursed wound or hearing the story of how a friend or lover got a particularly nasty scar... it was shy and sorrowful and I didn't want it to end as the bike took me back across the burrard bridge. I savoured the lights reflecting off the water and the stars above my head. There are no stars in LA, sometimes you can see the pole star but even that can be hidden by the light from the rubble.
I want to live here forever.
posted by Chris Rooney | 1:59 AM
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