Playlist I made walking around the city
TRANSCRIPT
A long time ago, I used to have some friends who liked to go around the country by riding freight trains
They'd hitch out of Omaha or Lincoln or usually Kansas City and end up in Pennsylvania or Montana, California, Arizona
I never caught a ride with any of them
I didn't really ever have the chance
But I liked to sit with them on the rails and the bridges and watch the trains go by
And they'd tell me about the different kinds of cars and which ones were good rides, where they were going, what you had to look out for
Maybe that's why when I went for a walk recently and found an old abandoned railroad trestle in the western part of Victoria's downtown in Canada, where I live now. I climbed over a fence and went and sat on it for a while
And I've been going back to it, sitting there and watching cars go by, people, a couple of stories up above the ground
I don't really have anything else to say but that, just a funny memory, I guess
Maybe a reflection about living in an urban place because I've lived out in the countryside for so long now
…
It's been interesting to be in a city and hear all the languages and see all the people from all over the world
There's always a motor running somewhere, and it's so loud
I'm sitting in a stairwell behind a Marriott Hotel right now by a tennis court, and this is about as quiet as it gets in this part of town
But I can hear a hummingbird singing, a seagull or two, and the endless different vehicles going by
It's a pretty nice evening
It's probably about 15 degrees Celsius, which is like 60 something
My life has become measured in Celsius and meters and kilometers and centimeters
It's been interesting to get to know the rules of the city
People mostly stop at crosswalks here, and they don't cross until the light changes
That's new to me
It's interesting to learn the social rules
…
There is a distance that people have between each other, I think, to protect themselves from the amount of relationships
And so I think a lot of people don't share a lot, and they don't expect to be shared with that much
And so you kind of have to keep a lot to yourself in the beginnings
It takes time to build trust and relationships
I think a lot of people probably have a lot of pain because of that, actually, because maybe they never have time to build relationships because it takes so long
I was texting with my friend Martin a couple of days ago, and he sent me this poem called Widows by Louis Gluck
And I wrote back to him a little tiny poem that I kind of threw together in the moment
Actually, I just found it, so I'll read it along with the exchange that we had
It's kind of a cool one
So it's called Widows
…
WIDOWS
My mother's playing cards with my aunt
Spite and malice, the family pastime, the game my grandmother taught all her daughters
Midsummer, too hot to go out
Today, my aunt's ahead
She's getting the good cards
My mother's dragging, having trouble with her concentration
She can't get used to her own bed this summer
She had no trouble last summer getting used to the floor
She learned to sleep there, to be near my father
He was dying
He got a special bed
My aunt doesn't give an inch, doesn't make allowance for my mother's weariness
It's how they were raised
You show respect by fighting, to let up insults, the opponent
Each player has one pile to the left, five cards in the hand
It's good to stay inside on days like this, to stay where it's cool
And this is better than other games, better than solitaire
My grandmother thought ahead
She prepared her daughters
They have cards
They have each other
They don't need any more companionship
All afternoon, the game goes on, but the sun doesn't move
It just keeps beating down, turning the grass yellow
That's how it must seem to my mother
And then suddenly, something is over
My aunt's been at it longer
Maybe that's why she's playing better
Her cards evaporate
That's what you want
That's the object
In the end, the one who has nothing wins
…
“Good one”
I wrote back to my friend Martin
“Wow”
“She's a poet laureate?”
“She's good”
And then I wrote, "Wish I could send this poem to you, but that's how life goes
People leave, and you never see them again
And somehow, that's supposed to be always okay"
"That's good," he said
And I said, "I just wrote it straight from the heart
That's my feeling, not to dwell on it
But someone I know had a really good connection with her grandparents
She loved this poem, and her grandpa just died
So it hit her hard
But that's how life goes
People leave, and you never see them again
And somehow, that's supposed to always be okay"
"So dope," said Martin
"Not too wholesome," I said
He said, "Not for you"
Kind of at a loss for words, though, apart from that
It's becoming evening here
Everybody else is out doing something
The ferry's coming or going, one of the two
Probably going
It's getting darker
There's a cherry tree by the tennis court
People walking by are wondering why I'm talking into my phone
This is one of the quietest spots I've found around here
It's funny getting urbanized
I hope there's some parts of me that survive, and to be honest, some parts that don't
Thanks for listening
