dirty little whirlwind, i'm pinned to the heart of your swirl.
DISCLAIMER: this is a personal blog (i just want to write about my life 😭) and does not necessarily reflect the views, opinions or perspectives of my employer or church.
it’s 4am and i’ve just finished eating a plate full of leftover picky bits: a slider and a couple of shrimp from an event my sister went to last week, an empanada from the baby shower at church this past sunday.
my sleep schedule has been erratic since i’ve been home. i regularly sleep at 4 or 5am and wake up at noon or later. my brother’s even worse, sleeping at 7am or later and then waking up after the sun’s already set. my mom also regularly sleeps later than me. we’re a family of night owls, though i don’t remember it being this bad.
i do remember coming home after being out in high school, maybe around 3am or so, and my mom would still be awake at the computer. she’d let me in and ask if i wanted any toast and i would say yes. that was such a deep comfort; i hold the memories of those pieces of toast dear. even in the chaos of those years, there was always that steadfast gesture of love.
my visa to return and stay in the uk finally got approved last week. i’m excited to go back, but at the same time, i know it’ll be a bit of a shock. no more late-night snacking at 4am. i’ll be alone again, making my own toast, heating my own food, sleeping at sensible hours and living out sensible days.
it’s a bit strange living two different lives in two different places while feeling like the same person on either side of the divide. sure, different parts me emerge depending on where i am and who i’m with, but they’re always all there waiting in the wings.
i’m excited to get back to a routine and to the work i’ve been doing in london. i somehow feel readier for it and i hope to bring back a renewed sense of conviction. there, in the green room full of all my many selves, is a stronger and more focused man ready for his cue.
i’m sitting in a bright cafe near dundas and university. it’s surprisingly crowded for a random thursday night. students have their laptops out, working diligently on things that seem all-consuming but they won’t remember five years from now. the room is alive and buzzing with conversation.
i sit by myself sipping on a cookie butter latte and munching on a sea salt and caramel brownie. i’ve been writing a lot with my pomera (yesterday, i bought a bunch of stickers to decorate it with and now looking at it gives me so much joy), but it’s all been too personal to post. i realize that when i write with my blog niggling in the back of my mind, i sanitize everything i write until it’s watered down and toothless, especially now that i’ve seen actual real-world consequences of my writing.
back in high school and university, i was flippant and thoughtless, daring the world to punish me for my honesty. i wrote with abandon, about people in my life who would read things about themselves later. at times, i would use my blog as a petty, indirect form of communication, jump-starting conversations i was too scared to bring up face to face. i liked to think i was simply expressing myself, using my voice, speaking my truth, but it was messy and not without consequence.
these days. i want to be more careful. i’m starting to understand the value of privacy and i no longer want to be so readily perceived. i realize that people can take my words and run away with them, and when i exaggerate or take creative liberties with my own feelings, it misrepresents me and feeds into an innacurate idea of who i am.
even though i’ve always understood that the picture a person has of you in their head will never be the truth of who you are, i don’t want to give people quite so many opportunities to misunderstand me, or read the wrong way into the things i share.
there is a beauty in vulnerability, putting yourself out there, letting people in, but there is also a danger. and i think part of growing up for me is underestanding and mitigating that danger, moving more cautiously. but of course, this means i can’t actually practice the full force of free and honest expression.
i was out with a couple of friends for dinner last week and one of them said i should start a substack and i think i’m going to do it. keep it anonymous and make it a space where i can be completely 100% honest and write without being selfconscious, without risking myself or others. i still want to share. i want my words to reach someone, for them to resonate, to believe i’m not alone. the great reach into the void. and maybe in this way, i might help someone else see that they’re not alone.
a couple of days ago my family celebrated thanksgiving and, as we do every year, we went around and each of us said what we were most grateful for this year. i was second to last to go, and by the time it got to me, i already knew what i was going to say.
this year, i’m actually thankful for the extnded time i’ve gotten to spend back home in toronto, even if the circumstances that afforded that time are terrible. i’ve been trying to give meaning and purpose to being here, and looking back, i realize i’ve stumbled into so many opportunities to confront and finally reckon with so many parts of my past, and start to make peace with things i thought i’d put to bed. i’ve really been able to wrestle with who i was in this city, who i am now, who i could be.
i read a book while i’ve been home called “breats and eggs” by mieiko kawakami. in the final stretch of the book, the narrator revisits the place she grew up in, pulled along by some inexplicable, unassailable force, drawn there by something beyond her own willpower.
she finds herself at the building she lived in until she was 7 years old, now abandoned, desperately pummeling on the door to her family’s old apartment, believing if she could just see everything again – perhaps her old bookbag is still there, her favourite stuffed animal – something inside her would finally fall into place, some piece of her being would finally make sense.
a little while later, i finally watched backrooms and one of the repeated motifs was the idea that we’re all stuck in cycles and true liberation comes from finding the strength and agency to forge new paths.
mystery, nostalgia, melancholy – i wonder about the things we carry, the things that live inside us that we think we’ve grown out of, that we think we’ve moved on from. i think i hope i can see the broken or confusing parts of my past from a new vantage point. i think i hope i’ve finally gained the tools to spar with these things in a better way. but we are creatures of habit, and i wonder how impossible it can be to avoid familiar traps.
a few weeks ago, i kissed a boy i’ve had a crush on since the summer i graduated high school, and the next week we had dinner and i finally decided to close that chapter in my heart. sweet nothings turned into a form of a denial, and i realized i could liberate myself from the confusing dynamic of perhaps one-sided attraction that’s dominated our 15 years. so i did, and i feel free, and now i can actually be what he needs me to be – a good friend, someone who cares about him without wanting anything more.
the night after i saw him the first time, i went to my 15-year high school reunion. at first, it was exciting and fun to see everyone after so long, but soon the old feelings crept in: a sense of alienation and separation. before i left, walked around the school by myself and remembered the boy i was those many years ago, sitting in the music room at lunchtime playing piano on my own.
i want to sit with that boy now and give him the sureness i hope i now have. i want to make him brave and strong. i want to give him permission to live without fear of rejection or condemnation. i want to take away the nagging feeling of being wrong or somehow misplaced. and i want to gift him the safety and security to grow into himself with boundless joy instead of stifling, claustrophobic worry. and so i sit with him, in my heart of hearts, there at that lonely piano, and i try.
a couple of days after the reunion, i had an incredibly honest conversation with my mom about that tumultuous time in my life. it was the first time we’d ever really talked about it. this past sunday, i got to share some of that with my dad too. and i’m lighter knowing they might understand me a little bit better. something closed breaks open and points to a tender and more expansive future and i live with a greater hope i didn’t realize i craved.
the first couple of weeks here were chaotic and full of old stumbles, but i made new vows in october and now it’s been 20 days since i’ve had a drink. i’ve found a peace i can exercise here too, in this city, the site of all my chaos. i can exist here, in my history, in new ways – and how wonderful is that? to know that you don’t have to be a prisoner of the person you once were, to gain a new sense of an elusive mastery. and suddenly, even the most dark and dreadful parts of this city are bathed in a new light and bold, vivid colours emerge.
in the end, this time has been a kind of gift, and so i’m grateful. i’m trying to put into practice everything i’ve learned over the past few years, to be who i am instead of who i once was and live with the great hope of always, by the grace of God, becoming who i’m meant to be.
and even though i’m not perfect and the process always feels like taking one step forward and two steps back, i’m learning to take things one day at a time, have grace for my great failures and celebrate the little victories.
i wrote a poem once during the pandemic that goes like this:
“come find me in the space between who i am and who i want to be come build a home in that uncertain place a makeshift bed in the shade of my becoming”
i went to mount sinai’s ophthalmology clinic for an 11:15am appointment yesterday, having been referred there by the doctors at the emergency room the previous day. i woke up too late to shower and properly get ready, and i had half a mind to call and cancel the appointment, but i powered through, thinking that getting a second, perhaps more educated opinion on everything could never be a bad idea. and i was right.
at the clinic, i waited around for a while, but i was in and out in about an hour, which isn’t terrible. i was first seen by a doctor who seemed pretty green. he was young, cute – i could tell he was trying to be thorough and tackle things from every angle. he put numbing drops in my eyes – something i’ve never experienced before – and then got me to read a couple of lines of letters on a screen behind me through a mirror far away. it was difficult, and a huge machine was in partially obstructing my view, and i didn’t ask to move it in case it was part of the test. i think i did decently, but could’ve done better if that machine wasn’t in the way.
then he asked me to put my face in the giant machine – apparently some sort of specially designed microscope – rest my chin on a cushioned stand and lean forward, pressing my forehead against a bar, eyes open. the machine had a scope and light and the light would change colour as he examined my eye – “look at my right ear, look up, look straight forward, look up again, hmm.” some times, the scope would press into my eyeball – “don’t worry, your eyes are numb, but if you feel any discomfort, let me know” – measuring pressure or something, a very strange sensation.
he asked about my medical history, my concerns, he floated the idea of giving me antibiotics. he looked at the mychart i set up when i went to the emergency room, and i read over his shoulder that the swab they took the previous day came back negative for any presence of bacteria (a comfort). he said that to his knowledge, it was just a viral thing and i just needed artificial tears, but he told me it might take weeks for it to fully go away.
then he said he wanted to get one more person to look at me before sending me on my way. he left the room, saying he’d be back and came back in wearing a mask (he hadn’t been wearing one before), accompanied by a woman doctor also wearing a mask. i took this to mean that whatever they discussed out there led them to believe i was highly contagious.
the woman doctor tried to play it off by making a joke about how she had a kid in preschool, so she was probably the most dangerous person in the room. i managed to force a laugh. then she asked me to put my head back in the contraption and did a quick examination. she seemed to be correcting the greener doctor along the way, saying things like “where did you see that?” and “i’m not seeing what you saw, i think all of this is so and so and so and so.” i got the sense that the greener doctor was getting a bit embarrassed at being corrected.
eventually, she definitively diagnosed me with pink eye, saying that it would go away in a few days and in the meantime i should adopt a regimen of frequent handwashing, lots of artificial tears, and not touching my eyes. honestly, this was mostly a relief. i can very easily wash my hands frequently and put a few eye drops in my eyes every few hours (though not touching my eyes would be hard). i asked her if i needed to quarantine or cancel plans or anything and she said no, i just needed to wash my hands a lot.
after the diagnosis, she hurriedly left, leaving me alone with the first doctor. he was quiet and wouldn’t really look at me. i tried to make some friendly conversation and get his input, asking “should i still get those eye drops you recommended?” and all he said was, “yes.” still not looking at me. i said bye and he said bye, scribbling in his papers, and then i went to the rexall in mount sinai to pick up the eye drops. my eyes weren’t even that irritated, but the doctors said the allergy eye drops i’d gotten and been using since the day before were the wrong ones and accordingly hadn’t been very effective, so i was excited for anything that would help with the redness. today, my eyes are already so much better.
on my way home, i thought i should treat myself to lunch after the whole ordeal. i was thinking of going into the village by the grange to suss out some food options, but i felt bad about spending money while there was perfectly good food at home that my dad poured his sweat into making, so i decided to get a flat white at the library instead on the way home. i still don’t know if you’re supposed to tip at coffee shops, and i kind of resent that they’ve now made it a guilt-inducing option on the card readers.
as i was walking back home, i saw what seemed to be a street festival on mccaul, right by st. patrick’s church. i’d noticed it on my way to my appointment but didn’t have time to stop by, so i was glad it was still going. of course, i went to check it out and it turned out the church was having their annual community barbecue that day: free burgers (or sausages), bags of chips, drinks, even a raffle. it was so cute, and everyone seemed so friendly.
i stood in line and they ran out of burgers and the woman in front of me was boisterously going on about how she wouldn’t settle for a sausage (apparently she was a member of the church and was making jokes with all of the staff), so they directed us to get our burger buns dressed and then line up by the barbecues to get burgers right off the grill.
eventually, i got a burger and sat down to eat, and shortly after, a young woman named isabella came by and asked if she could sit with me. she was very sweet and we got to talking and i found out that she was in her fourth year of studying neuroscience at u of t, and she had moved here from ecuador for school.
soon after, a young man named byron asked to sit with us, and we learned he had just moved to toronto from ecuador in january for work at autodesk, the company othniel works at. coincidences on coincidences! the two of them bonded over ecuador and the struggles and joys of moving to toronto (one of the main struggles being the incredible relative cold, one of the joys being the genuine diversity of the city).
i learned that they were both church-goers, or at least, for isabella, she had been in ecuador, and it was nice to meet other young people of the faith. turns out byron is an occasional attendee of st. patrick’s church, and he said it was good. one of the staff members came to talk to us and let us know about a lecture series they were doing on current issues, like the climate crisis, political activism and ai.
i could tell that, like me, she was also very conscious of how modern society rightfully views the church. she really stressed that the lectures were not dogmatic or an attempt to control how anyone thinks or convince people any which way, but were simply an opportunity to grapple with the world’s most pressing problems with curiosity, through the lens of faith. i felt for her, having to justify, take a defensive approach, anticipate judgment, derision and/or polite (or not so polite) vitriol. there was something almost apologetic about the way she spoke about what the church was doing, and it made me realize i need to be prouder of the good work we do, while still conscious of the failures.
but i found the whole thing so encouraging. i’d been praying for a renewed closeness with God, to be drawn back to Him, to feel His presence again after a bit of a rocky week. i’d been praying for a refreshed sense of perspective, to know and trust the goodness of God’s ways above the shallow promises of this broken world – this world of image, self-indulgence and empty desire. i’d been praying to have the strength and conviction to recommit to better habits, to stop straying and failing, even when it’s hard. and this – this beautiful sunny day, these kind and welcoming people, the serendipity and joy of conversation and new connections – it was all so affirming.
walking home, it really felt like God was telling me not to worry, not to sweat the small stuff, because He is here, and even when it’s hard and i’m embarrassed about, well, perhaps not my faith, but the big C Church – there are people who understand, and the love that suffuses all the work will shine through. there are people out there fighting the good fight, and showing the world new possibilities of what the Church could be, what the good kingdom of God could look like here on earth, in this life – communities of mutual sacrifice and care, where all people, including and especially lowliest and “least of us”, can flourish and know relationship and genuine love, where grace and compassion rule over self-righteousness and self-preservation.
so i am excited again to do the work. i hope i am back on track.
i listen to music and everything feels a little bit better. comforting melodies, life-affirming tunes. the sky is grey outside, but the air is warm. a welcome form of dissonance. my own life has felt dissonant lately, leaning into tendencies i should’ve really left behind by now. london was a place where i could practice new forms of faith, and i seem to have thrown all that away as soon as i returned to toronto. but i read the Bible for the first time in a while today, and there was a passage all about how God is always waiting for us to return to Him, to choose Him, to love Him. i was strengthened and made new, and i feel like i can make toronto a place of formation too – a place bursting with new life, with the fullness of it. i do not have to be the same person i once was, the lost kid growing up here, desperately grasping at the dark, just because i’m home. i can let the light pour in here too.
met up with bre on wednesday afternoon and we started by catching up at ruby soho for their happy hour, sitting at the best spot on their patio for people watching. i kept seeing cute guys walking by and saying they were my type: men with hockey flow and big mustaches, stocky builds, a little rough around the edges, somehow a different quality of attractive from the guys in london, maybe a little warmer, a little more inviting. or maybe i’m just projecting. i joked that maybe i should move back, maybe it would be easier to date – but i remember my love life before leaving and it wasn’t very promising, and i shouldn’t be so boy crazy anyway.
bre noticed one of her regular pilates clients passing by and stopped her to chat. she convinced us to move to earl’s for their happy hour with the promise of lychee margaritas, but we later learned they removed those from their happy hour menu. and after getting a little tipsy at these happy hours, we decided to walk over to ossington for old times’s sake.
first stop was get well, where i have many memories of getting sloshed and playing free arcade games. i also distinctly remember spending a night there years ago ordering triple rum and cokes and yelling at bre when she told the bartender to stop serving me. later, i rented harry potter to fall asleep to at her place, and the next morning i woke up and threw up in her sink. i clogged it and went into bre’s room and said, “hey bre, i think your sink is broken. i’m going to go now, bye,” before leaving her, still sleeping, to clean up the mess later. a fond memory.
we wanted to sit on the patio, but there were no free tables, so we ended up sitting with a man named braulio, who’d only moved to toronto (from brazil) three months ago. we got to talking about all sorts of things, including music, and he invited us to a concert he had a spare ticket to at the garrison that night.
always up for a little bit of adventure, we said yes, and so got swept up into the orbit of this random brazilian man. we had to source another ticket to the concert, which ended up being a bit of a hassle because they only took cash at the door, but we figured it out. the concert itself was interesting and fun; experimental music i typically wouldn’t listen to on my own, but that was part of the adventure. we made friends with the guitarist of the main act and told one of the openers (a harpist with a beautiful voice) that she looked great and did an amazing job.
things got a bit blurry at the concert, as they tend to do, and i’m not sure how we said goodbye to braulio (who was so friendly and fun), but bre and i ended up getting late night chinese food, and then i made the misguided decision to go to woody’s by myself. it wasn’t very busy, and i mostly remember sitting broodingly in a corner watching the drag show until i figured i should take the initiative to have fun and made friends with bunch of guys including an ecuadorian man i made out with.
and the night went on and on and i made slapdash decisions against my better judgment, chasing some form of – what? validation? affirmation? the fickle high of being desired, releasing my body to the dark, encroaching night?
at around 5am, i finally headed home, grabbing a mcdonalds mcgriddle along the way, clinging onto some semblance of warmth and comfort. i got home and lay on the bed in a cloud of my own folly, spent and exhausted, excited for sleep.
the next day, i had lunch with joff at an indonesian spot at village by the grange.
it was nice to see him after the wreckage of the night.
later, i met up with renee at the comrade for their happy hour, and eventually (after stopping by renee’s place to walk the dog she’s currently dogsitting), conor met us at oldtown bodega, where we split a couple of bottles of wine. it was nice to catch up with the both of them, and it felt like really no time had passed at all. easy friendships are so wonderful that way.
after a couple of hours, we met up with a bunch of conor’s irish friends who were in town for a wedding at scotland yard pub. conor cicci was also there for his birthday and renee and i stayed after conor and most of his friends had left, to dance with all the birthday people. apparently it was a throwback night and they were playing 2010s bangers. we reminisced on the time when all that music was modern and current, when the pop girlies still regularly released optimistic and anthemic pop bangers.
got swept up again and ended up at drom taberna for the afters, where i bumped into an old friend from mcgill and made bad choices. at some point, renee collapsed into an uber home, and i went with conor cicci and a couple of his friends to a random man’s condo. we only stayed for a little bit because it was kind of dead and very late.
thankfully, the condo was close to my parents’ placed so i stumbled home and picked up a tim hortons medium double double and a sausage and egg breakfast sandwich along the way.
so that’s what this week has been. nights that go on for far too long, retreading all my worse paths, collecting more chaotic stories full of some things i want to keep but also many things i could very well do without. a familiar exercise in excess and abandon, refusing the call of moderation and self-control, always starting off breezy and whimsical but then taking it too far. parts of it are admittedly fun, but it feels like a relapse, the same old kind of adventure instead of committing to perhaps a better thing and seeing how life might open up in a new way – maybe more boring from an outside perspective, but more life-giving and, in the end, more fulfilling and aligned to who i’m meant to be.
it’s hard because i love all my friends, but i don’t love who i am when i get caught in riptides of my own making. i learned to live life a certain way here and now i need to relearn a different way, but i’m my own worst enemy.
perhaps i know i’m on the cusp on of some great change and am holding onto a sense of control and agency and indulging my rebellious streak. perhaps i’m trying to get something out of my system before surrendering everything to the life i know i want. perhaps i’m simply weak and prone to making these familiar mistakes in these familiar places.
or perhaps i simply needed to know for sure this is not the life i want for myself anymore.
recently, i wrote this:
the spark of a familiar conviction, the ache of something new. life in all its fullness, reaching, reaching out. looking inward at the three pillars of my own undoing, making vows to finally let them go. a nascent excitement, half trepidation; don’t want to get my hopes up, but here before me: the blessing of a new month, fresh start, another chance.
and all the while, a verse:
forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. see, i am doing a new thing! now it springs up; do you not perceive it? i am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
here, a promise, an encouragement, a hope. what great possibilities, expanding horizons, to find my way, to drink from the stream. to finally embrace that beautiful surrender. the age-old question: what would happen if i try something different?
i whisper prayers and cling to my maker, beseeching Him, “make me new.”
i’ve kind of fucked up september, but here i am again, and it’s never too late or too early for a second (or a third, a fourth, a millionth) chance. at some point, i really must decide what i put my trust in, my faith in. what will i commit to? more and more i’m realizing i cannot be lukewarm. there is little room for compromise.
the past few days have been a whirlwind of love and joy and little sleep.
it started last friday, with my flight to toronto. i sat at the shake shack in the north terminal of gatwick airport, typing away on my freewrite while eating a burger. when it was time to go, i distinctly remember thinking i should pack my freewrite in my backpack differently so it would be more accessible, but somehow, i guess in the frenzy of thoughts and excitement of the airport, i ended up not packing it at all.
later, when i was on the plane looking through my backpack for wired headphones, i realized my freewrite was no longer with me. little panic and heartbreak, and for the first leg of the journey i forced myself to come to terms with the likelihood that i’d never see the device again. i resolved to file a lost item report as soon as i had the time, and tried to put all of my residual anxiety and self-chastising aside as best i could so i could focus on the excitement of coming home and being able to spend time with family and friends and see my brother get married.
we were grounded for about an hour after landing because of issues with the electronic terminals at pearson airport (a frequent problem you’d think they would’ve solved this far post-covid), and i ended up talking to the older man sitting next to me named terry.
he and his wife were in the uk for a trip back to his ancestral land of guernsey, and they were so grateful they were able to see it at least once. turns out he works at a company that manages mentorship for church leaders and he himself acts as a mentor, having been committed to his faith all his life. recently, i’ve found myself mysteriously seated to men of faith on flights; last time it was a man who was at one time a dean of divinity at oxford. it’s led to some very interesting and fruitful conversations. in fact, as i’m writing this, terry’s sent me a message recommending some churches to check out in toronto because i mentioned i might end up having to move home and would want to find a nice, invigorating church if that turned out to be the case.
the delay at pearson forced me to head straight from the airport to a family dinner with our family, alison’s (omri’s now wife’s) family, and their bridesmaids and groomsmen. i took a go bus from pearson to richmond centre and stopped by a tim horton’s for the mandatory medium double double and to change into a fancier outfit.
dinner was incredible chinese food (something i’ve sorely missed in london), and then the young’uns (all the siblings and the groomsmen and bridesmaids) went to karaoke nearby. we belted tunes, stone cold sober, and it was very fun. omri and alison fittingly sang a duet (breaking free, of course), and at the end, ophir sang a michael jackson song and danced before collapsing, exhausted.
the next day was omri’s bachelor party. started with dim sum at lobster port in markham, waves of dishes arriving intermittently. i tried durian for the first time and very much didn’t like it – kind of smelled and tasted like vomit, but i think it must be an acquired taste.
then we went to aerosports, where we competed with literal children for space on all the attractions. at one point, we were taking a photo in something that reminded me of a mcdonalds play place, and we were blocking the way of a few kids. we heard them say, annoyed, “why are there big kids here, that’s so weird,” before turning around.
we took turns riding on a 360 bike that went around and around, upside down. i historically get motion sick very easily, so i knew it was a bad idea for me, but i’m a staunch believer that you should take opportunities as they come and try as many thing as possible, so i went on anyway and it was predictably a very unpleasant experience that left me nauseous. but i’m glad i did it because now i know for sure that i never want to do it again!
after aerosports, we went to a rage room where we donned safety overalls and visors and got shoved into a room with the challenge of beating everything in it to an unrecognizable pulp. we took various weapons of choice to electronics and glass, throwing bottles to bat like baseballs, pummelling a microwave and a dyson vacuum, folding a flatscreen tv in half. the mallot was the best rage-enabling tool.
later, the man who ran the place said that their typical clientele are couples (perhaps channeling all of the unspoken rage they have for each other), and groups of women (who need an outlet for their frustrations). he said that he only ever rarely got groups of men, who have many other ways of letting off steam.
we had an omakase dinner at mizu sushi in scraborough and it was the best sushi i’ve had in a long time. they sprayed golden glitter into the air that made it look like we were in a flickering hollywood movie. standouts were the trout and fatty tuna. i wish i’d taken a photo of every individual piece as they came out and posted little collages to my instagram story so everyone’s eyes could feast. but then again, i’m trying to avoid social media (and being perceived).
we had some time between omakase and the next stop, so we went to asia food mart across the parking lot and bought a bunch of snacks. it’s a huge asian grocery store open 24 hours, and i said walking in that if i lived in the area and ever felt lonely or sad, i would simply go there and browse the aisles, open myself up to a chance encounter.
then we went to the last stop, twilight boardgame café. we booked the karaoke room but ended up just playing board games in it. telestrations, werewolf and poetry for neanderthals – all hilarious. i think telestrations might be my favourite game to play with a group because it’s so funny seeing everyone’s artistic interpretations of random phrases and watching how everything breaks down.
that night, our family stayed at the air bnb omri and alison rented us for the wedding. we slept late and woke up around at around 11am and it was wedding day!
omri was already gone by the time we woke up. we suited up and headed to the venue for photos and to do a single sound check for the worship song us siblings were set to perform (yet not i but christ in me).
the wedding went off without a hitch. it was a beautiful day, so full of heartfelt emotion and love. we were in the front row and saw omri really tear up when alison walked down the aisle, and it made us all cry. i haven’t seen omri cry in maybe years, and i was caught off guard by how moved i was by everything. when it was time for us to sing our song, orpah grabbed ophir’s attention and when he turned to face us his face was streaked with tears. my dad cried too. i think we were all just so happy for omri, it was really beautiful. somewhere inside, i felt the long passing of time since we were kids, so much always changing, all of us growing up – and that made it happily bittersweet and poignant.
the reception was a great time, there was a doodler and a photo booth, an ice cream cart and an open bar, and eventually, a dance floor popping off kpop and filipino dance music and pop bangers. we met lots of omri’s friends and it was nice to dip our toes into his life a little bit. at one point on of his friend’s wives told us that when her husband saw all of us siblings, he’d exclaimed to her “wow omri’s family is so hot,” which is always a great ego boost.
my mom started crying during her improvised speech, during which my dad told a hilarious story about how omri was so curious as a child that he kicked the cane out from under a man walking in front of him “just to see what would happen,” and my mom chimed in, “and that man was disabled!” to raucous laughter. it sounds terrible, but they told the story in a really funny way. omri’s best man also cried during his speech, which made all the bridesmaids cry. basically, everyone was crying, and honestly i was so moved to see how loved omri is by his friends and community. i was surprised i found it so reassuring.
my mom said something about how in a marriage, everyone at the wedding is there not only to bear witness, but to also enter into a covenantal agreement to support the happy couple from that day onward, and i know that they have such a strong and wonderful support system around them. i’m so proud of my brother and the life he’s made for himself, one governed by good values, a love for others and a deep devotion to god.
the next day, omri met us at the airbnb and we went for brunch before impulsively meeting up with his new york friends at go place spa for some rest and relaxation. the spa was so luxurious and soothing, such a treat. we spent the day drifting in and out of various saunas lined with various stones supposedly emanating various healing effects. bathing in red light, relaxing in a dark comfort room, sitting around and chatting with his friends, getting to know them better.
it was a great way to end the weekend and cap all the celebrations. and now we’re back in toronto and i’m sitting in a café with my brothers, gathering all my bearings so i can start to pull my life together. i feel like i’m drifting a bit, slightly unmoored while things remain messy and up in the air, but i’m hopeful everything will resolve soon.
everything feels easy here, i look around and people seem relaxed and gentle and relatively content, but i miss london, and i feel like there’s still important work to be done there. it’s funny, i thought that being home would make me want to stay home, where things are simple and familiar and good, but for now, being back makes me feel like my heart is still being called to london, and to the paths that seem to be forming there. i’ve left things unfinished and i would like to see them through.
i leave all of it in the hands of God but also try to bear responsibility. i think i need to sit down and do some work, get things sorted. maybe i can spend this unforeseen downtime resting in prayer and meditation, wrestling with what i want, where i’m meant to be – doing my best to prepare for whatever lies ahead. maybe this unmooring can be a period of formation too.
red room, shadows playing, lasers beaming through the smoke; bodies close and the feel of eyes darting, landing, lingering, looking away; ostentatious kisses with another strange man before floating off to dance; bursts of new friends and quick abandonment, everything in flashes through a fog of shots and double rum and cokes; last call and desperate clawing for continuation.
navigation, a journey not remembered, and then:
blue room, pulsing, catatonic sway; great trance of dancing, music thumping in a droning beat bleeding into itself; the blur of a crowd growing and shrinking and growing again.
later:
emerging into daylight, exhausted and eating tesco pasta in the 7am sun. gathering bearings before a train ride home and stumbling to bed. and as always, a cost: a shadow lingering for the next two days, the taunt of needless repetition. a cough, a runny nose, my bank balance glaring from my phone screen.
and on monday:
the spark of a familiar conviction, the ache of something new. life in all its fullness, reaching, reaching out. looking inward at the three pillars of my own undoing, making vows to finally let them go. a nascent excitement, half trepidation; don’t want to get my hopes up, but here before me: the blessing of a new month, fresh start, another chance.
and all the while, a verse:
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
here, a promise, an encouragement, a hope. what great possibilities, expanding horizons, to find my way, to drink from the stream. to finally embrace that beautiful surrender. the age-old question: what would happen if i try something different?
i whisper prayers and cling to my maker, beseeching Him, “make me new.”
life’s been up in the air lately. distraction in the shape of uncertainty. paths form and collapse and form again.
on tuesday, ally and i watched “kiki’s delivery service” at the bfi imax. they showed it in its original japanese, so i didn’t quite get the gut punch of nostalgia i was hoping for, but it was still nice.
i had ramen for dinner, breaking the day’s fast, and decided to walk home from finsbury park because all of the transport links i needed were kind of messed up.
as i was walking down a near-empty street, i saw a guy turn to stare at me as he biked past. he stopped a little ahead of me on the sidewalk so i took my airpods out of my ears, readying myself for impending contact.
he started talking to me while i walked by. it was dark and we were alone and i think he saw me tense up and draw back. i honestly thought he was going to mug me.
“hey, why are you scared? i just like you.”
i walked on and he started to bike at pace beside me.
“where are you going?” “home,” i said. “can i come with you?” “no, i’m not looking for sex tonight, maybe another time.”
i’m not sure why i said this. i think maybe i thought that flat-out rejecting him would make him mad and things would escalate.
and then he said, “why? we can go slow, i’ll show you good love.” and i said no and he said, “can i kiss you?” and i said no, and finally, after biking next to me for a few seconds, he said, “okay, okay.” and sped away.
i exhaled and my shoulders relaxed, grateful to be alone again, without the threat of violence. you never know what might happen when a strange man tries to talk to you, on an empty street, in the dark, but you always brace for the worst.
–
but tonight, walking home from a solo dinner, i thought the sky looked so beautiful. i looked up and thought about how above and beyond all human systems and bureaucracy, all petty concerns, the world existed and would continue to exist, turning on its axis long after we’re all gone.
my little troubles were nothing in the face of such a dwarfing reality – that great expanse of burning, pleasantly indifferent sky – and that made me feel better.
i’m at vauxhall station waiting for a train that will take me to epsom to meet felix. he wants to go for a long walk and then maybe go to the gym, and then we’re going to watch spiderman brand new day. honestly, it sounds like a cute day.
we talked for a bit yesterday, while i was wasting away hungover in bed. my sorry state dashed our tentative plans to hang out that day. i called him after a nap, after getting home from church where i played keys for worship, to let him know i wouldn’t make it. i told him about the festival i went to on saturday, meeting james norton (who was a winning combination of handsome and kind), and seeing lorde play ribs again to a fawning crowd.
the festival itself was really fun. i wore an oversized baseball jersey(?), the one i wore to civil liberties once with megan and camilla, that’s so large it sometimes makes it look like i’m not wearing shorts from the back. was going for a bit of an effortless vibe, but i ended up not wearing the top for a good chunk of the time anyway.
saw erin lecount (though i wish she’d had a live band), the tiniest bit of audrey hobart, sienna spiro (astonishing voice), zara larsson (so fun), surprisingly a little bit of djo, and of course lorde, who was once again incredible.
while we were waiting for erin lecount to start, i spotted a guy in the crowd wearing a custom melodrama denim jacket, with the album cover art stitched onto the back. i told him i loved it and he said he bought it off of someone who made it on etsy but no longer wanted it. it seemed like he was there with is boyfriend, and the conversation kind of petered out, though they seemed nice enough. i took it as typical british reticence revealing itself again.
we got relatively good spots for lorde, though we somehow ended up behind a forest of tall people. they’d all been sitting down when we’d staked out our spots, their full heights only revealed when everyone stood up closer to the start of the set. there was a girl with her boyfriend right behind us and we made jokes about how small we all were in comparison.
she was nice. apparently she didn’t really know much of lorde’s new stuff, but she had a good vibe and willingly danced along to every song. lorde played all her bangers – what was that, supercut, green light. i ascended during david and came back to earth to dance my ass off to ribs.
i’d been drinking throughout the day and i kind of regret it. started with rose, but by zara larsson’s set i’d switched to rum and cokes, and by the time lorde was set to play, i’d moved on to doubles. the beginning spells of a great doom.
after the festival, we headed to a pub nearby the park to wait out the crowd for public transit. it was there, with sam and a couple of girls we randomly met, that an intention formed in me to go to fire nightclub, with or without them.
i ended up packing sam into a cab so he could go home, and somehow finding my way to fire nightclub, all alone and not altogether there myself. i paid the extortionate entrance fee and entered to an almost empty dance floor. i don’t quite remember how i kept myself busy. getting another drink every time i found mine empty, sporadically talking to people, making friends, spending some time on the dance floor when it got a little busier. it’s all a blur.
and then one thing led to another messy thing and i and got kicked out. i incoherently tried to reason with the staff, though i had no business at that point trying to hold any form of civil conversation. i walked around and tried to get back in from the front and they didn’t let me. and honestly, this was a blessing because i really should’ve been on my way home.
according to my bank account, i actually didn’t spend as much as i thought at fire – maybe 5 doubles in addition to the cover charge. still a disaster, and for what? to barely remember my time there, to be a liability making messes and wreaking havoc and being ignominiously thrown out? to wipe myself out for the whole of the next day?
it really is such a trap, one that i need to stop falling into. and then the next day, slipping back into my own worse habits, razing all the groundwork, digging myself a hole.
i’m still waiting for a decision on my visa. i’m praying it comes in in the next couple of days so i can be cleared to go to greece with alex. i’m hoping i’m allowed to stay, and if i am, i want it to mean something. i want my time here to matter. i’ve often felt here that i’m on the brink of some great transformation. when i look back on the last few years, i can see i’ve changed in many little ways.
but there is a change i’m still chasing that continues to elude me. it will be the one, i think, that matters, that will show me i am capable of great things. i always talk about shifts in perspective, the value of just looking at things the right way. i want to be able to take the things i’ve learned and really put them into practice instead of letting myself be caught in a too-familiar tide that hurls me against those too-familiar rocks.
let that tide come and wash over me, and i will stand firm and resolute. i will emerge on the breakwater cleansed, shining and new.
–
10:57PM – TRAIN TO VAUXHALL
had a nice day with felix. he picked me up from the train station and then we went to his place to drop my stuff off. sat in his room for a while exploring his book collection. cozy and subdued in a nice way.
instead of going to the gym like we’d originally planned, we decided to go for a run around epsom common, a place he hasn’t really explored yet, to see the area a little bit. better than traveling all the way there just to be confined to an enclosed space so similar to spaces i’ve been in before. can’t really imagine much variety in gyms after all.
the run was long-ish: 7.8 km in about an hour (we kept our pace relatively slow). epsom common was very green, seemed much greener than london – with london’s dead grass and dying trees, a sad sea of depressing browns. you walk around there and find the pavement strewn with dead leaves as though autumn’s come early. it was nice to run through tunnels of vibrant trees.
after the run, we stretched in a parking lot across from his flat. he’s very thorough with his stretches.
“i think you’re supposed to hold position for 30 seconds,” when i’m typically satisfied with ten. and then we went back to his place to shower and change before heading to spoons.
i had a curry (and later, a brownie with a scoop of ice cream for dessert) and he had a healthy meal of chicken, peas, and tenderstem broccoli. as we were leaving the spoons, an older man sitting by himself at a table near us got up from his chair and stopped me. i’d actually noticed him earlier and wondered why he was drinking alone. it made me think about how older people must appreciate any time spent out of the house, immersed in the world – to have a drink alone but among others might be a strange comfort.
“excuse me,” he said. i leaned in closer because i couldn’t quite hear him, “i just have to say, i love your, um, your feminism,” and by that, i took him to mean my femininity, “you look very lovely.”
it was totally unexpected and actually very cute. i shook his hand and wished him a good night. when we left, felix commented on how surprised he was.
“i honestly would’ve expected the opposite in spoons.”
it did make me wonder how many people see me out in the wild and think i look lovely and simply don’t say anything. i’d like to think it’s scores of people, straight-seeming men sneaking second glances, girls who think i’m cute. i’d like to think it’s almost everyone. being delulu is the solulu!
we walked past a lloyds bank with a pride logo in the window and i pointed at it and joked to felix that it seems like epsom’s actually a gay village. he laughed.
when we got to the theatre, we realized we had the whole screeen to ourselves. felix posed in the middle of the sea of empty seats and i took photos of him. the theatre stayed empty save for us the whole time. it was like we had our own private screening.
a run, dinner, a movie: anyone watching would call it a date. when i posted photos from the day, a couple of friends almost immediately commented, saying surely we must be dating by now. i told them that we have a fun and affectionate friendship, which is the truth. i do have a habit of framing him on social media in a more intimate way, and i’m sure that’s me subconsciously pushing a narrative. i’m going to try to stop doing that though because i think it’s actually making him uncomfortable.
but to one of my friends, i admitted that while it’s all fun and games in the moment, it’s going to be annoying (read: sad) when he eventually gets a girlfriend and has less time for me. an old tale and familiar wound by now, but one that stings nonetheless.
i wonder if i can ever adequately prepare myself for that small heartbreak. i will take the loss as it comes and let things fizzle out. time is mysterious and leaves room for all sorts of surprises, but i’m truly not holding my breath. who knows, maybe i’ll get deported anyway and it’ll all be a moot point. everyone has a good feeling about my visa situation, but i’m not quite holding my breath for that either. need to prepare for the worst, after all, though i still have hope i’ll stay.
i was playing with the ‘random’ button on my blog and it brought me to a post from 2010 when i posted the song “heart skipped a beat” by the xx.
i lay in bed and played the song; closed my eyes and breathed deeply while i listened.
and before i knew it, i was that 17-year-old boy again, wandering the 2am streets of toronto, alone in the night and battling my demons. full to bursting with a kind of love i fought to stamp down, and even then, i had a sense that the world was somehow still full of possibility – the golden promise of my fleeting youth. that a life existed on the other side of my silly fight, and i would wake up, bruised and battered, to the light of a new day, somewhere far away from there. i just had to make it through.
i lay in bed and listened to the song and saw my younger self so clearly: wearing too-tight jeans and the oversized brown plaid shirt i stole from yodit that still hangs in my room today. lost and wandering in the cold comfort of the near-deserted night, aching in a lonely way but knowing it wouldn’t last forever. overthinking, always, caught in a tangled forest of my own competing wants. troubled to the point of a restlessness that pushed me into the yawning dark.
i miss how big everything felt back then, deep heartache but so alive, a kind of romantic masochism. i open my eyes and realize i’m crying. i take the oversized brown plaid shirt from its hook on the door and put it on. i think about all of the nights its seen me through, all of the times i’ve pulled it tight around me.
there’s a friend i miss from back home who would wander the streets with me, a saving grace pulling me from the mire. we don’t talk anymore, but i miss her, and i’ve always had faith that one day we’ll reconnect.
maybe next time i’m in toronto i’ll reach out to her. we can have a coffee and catch up on all the bygone, wasted years and maybe start to heal what’s broken, patch up all the little cracks. would that be weird, so out of the blue? would it be selfish? crossing a boundary?
this is the first trip i took my new freewrite traveler on and these are some curated journal entries from it.
07.22.26 – WEDNESDAY – BRISTOL
we’re in cameron’s house now, about to go to bed. ally and i are sharing a room, our beds touching side by side. we had dinner at a really cute hand-pulled noodle place. called ahead and got there basically when they were closing, but they didn’t seem at all annoyed to serve us. they were warm and accommodating, inviting us in with genuine smiles.
a couple got up to leave and as they were paying their bill, i heard them tell the waitress that they used to live in bristol and always make a point of returning to eat here whenever they’re back. it’s nice to catch these random snippets of kindness – people saying things for no other reason than to be nice.
07.23.26 – THURSDAY – 9:23AM – TIVERTON
we woke up early this morning and cameron made some coffee in his french press for us to have before we started the drive. i really do love calm, quiet mornings – time to rest in stillness, mentally prepare for the day ahead over bits of casually cheerful chatter.
i’m looking forward to the whole trip, to the sense of reverential calm, worshipful quiet – time in nature, in creation, pondering the depth and breadth of God’s love and power. i’m hoping for a kind of transformation, a reorientation, a spark of some new conviction that i can carry with me back to london, to the rest of my life. and maybe these are high and lofty hopes, but nobody’s done anything that truly matters without first having an impossible dream.
and now “what’s up?” by 4 non blondes has come on the car stereo and cameron’s singing along in his screeching, what he calls his ‘acdc voice’ while flora films and laughs along. cam says it should be his karaoke song and we both agree.
4:30PM – LEE ABBEY
we’re at the tea cottage at lee abbey on one more pit stop before we head out on the first true leg of our pilgrimage – a short-ish (6-7 mile) walk to the inn we’re going to stay at tonight.
lee abbey itself is beautiful. from the main building, you can see rolling fields, cliff faces hanging over the sea. flowers bloom all over the property, apparently all tended to by one dedicated, incredibly knowledgeable woman.
we had some tea and muffins with members of the community here, during their break time that they call “elevensies”. got to talk to a few of them and get a sense of how they felt about living in community. they talked it up, describing how wonderful and formative it is. ally and the rest of them say they can see me living here for a year. so can i.
later, we visited the library and other sites, and i thought about how nice it would be to wake up to these beautiful views, read at a window looking out onto the cliffs and the sea. the serenity of it all. truly quiet rhythms. and the whole day a practice of learning how to be with others, how to love. how beautiful.
now we are sitting at a small stony beach – ally and flora have just taken a dip, did a bit of a wild swim. we haven’t done much walking before stopping for lunch here, but it’s been such a lovely start to everything.
3:13PM – MARTINHOE
we’ve been walking for the last hour or so and now we’re in martinhoe church. ally read a plaque detailing its illustrious history. this church is so old. we marveled at the fact that this town is now just a hamlet when it was once a bustling center of life.
cameron found a plaque on one wall commemorating the men and women of the parish who served in world war ii, and sadly a lot of men listed were brothers, sharing the same family name. imagine, a whole generation of men wiped out by senseless violence, the misguided pursuits of men.
he’s just finished doing a reading from the “pilgrim places, holy lives” booklet and there’s a deep sense of reverence and connection. it’s nice that these churches can act as spaces of rest and refuge on our journey, spaces of encounter and presence.
we sit here, in the quiet, and i get a little bit of what i came here for.
we sat for a while, in the silence, and i pondered the transformative power of God’s boundless love. how, if we were to really live in the reality of it, everything could change. if we could harness the truth of ourselves as conduits of God’s love, our very beings mountaintop encounters where people could experience God’s love, how might that change how we exist in the world – how we relate to each other, the stories we tell ourselves, how we live our lives? perhaps life itself could simply be a practice of love. what else could possibly matter more?
8:46PM – HEDDON VALLEY – HUNTER’S INN
we’ve finished the first true leg of our pilgrimage and now we’re relaxing in the guest lounge of the hunter’s inn in the heddon valley. we’ve eaten dinner and it was an experience.
three of us had meat pies and it took forever to order and for our food to arrive because all of the servers and runners were incredibly green young men.
cameron’s just read some evening prayers and it ends the day on another meditative, contemplative and reverential note. i’m glad to be doing this with these people – friends who take the faith and spiritual side of this seriously.
we’re here, in a beautiful inn, surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation, and it’s wonderful. this was a beautiful day, and i will sleep peacefully tonight. i will will the flat white i just drank to have minimal effect and not get in the way of deep slumber. and in the morning, we go again.
07.24.26 – FRIDAY – TRENTISHOE
we had breakfast at hunter’s inn – i had poached haddock with poached eggs, which was an odd but traditional choice – apparently very english.
after, we started the big walk, leg 2 of our journey. this included a very big hill – hopefully the biggest hill we’ll encounter on this walk. apparently a short cut so we could visit st. peter’s church, trentishoe.
we opened the big door and it creaked open to reveal a bit of a cave – dark and musty and overrun with bats. one flew across the space and we looked up and found so many of them sleeping in the eaves and rafters. cute little things, with all their droppings on the floor.
we couldn’t sit in the pews because of the filth, but after exploring a bit, reading about the church, we stopped to sit down and rest in a shady spot of the graveyard right outside. i’m looking at the three of them sitting or lying on their backpacks, talking about politics and faith – “mobilizing the christian network to be part of the anti-fascist state” – and a bit beyond them, i can see a collapsed bench against a large, wise-looking tree.
it’s peaceful here, the countryside is beautiful.
4:00PM – COMBE MARTIN
we’ve completed the most difficult and treacherous part of today’s big walk and now we’re resting and eating lunch at a beach in combe martin. not as nice as lee abbey’s magical beach, but still nice.
we conquered a really big what i’d call a mountain pass called “the great hangman”, saw some incredible veiws, and then visited a church called st. peter ad vuncula run by cam’s friend sophie, who is a new curate there.
she showed us around, and told us about her story. she finished residential training and requested a rural parish to serve in, which isn’t very typical at all. she has a lot of vision, hoping to harness the potential of the church in her parish to really make a difference in the lives of those who need it most, and it was exciting to hear about – made me think about how we need to be intentional and active to not miss opportunities.
later, she led a moment of daily prayer, which was very beautiful. she opened up the lady chapel for us and it was calm, still and quiet.
and now we’re at the beach, resting in the shade. cameron’s been very impressed with how effective our lidl haul from yesterday has been. we’ve been able to milk it for a second lunch of hummus, cheese and mackerel sandwiches for all of us, as well as snacks and fruit. honestly, we’re all full and it feels like a well-balanced diet – enough to sustain us for the next leg of the walk.
07.25.26 – SATURDAY – 8:40AM – ILFRACOMBE
the trip is done for me and now i’m on the bus to barnstaple, where i’ll take a train to exeter and from there head to london.
finished the last leg of the big walk yesterday – it was mostly easy going, more casual and calmly paced, tunnels of green that reminded me of parkland walk in london, paths through campsites that were ripe for anthropological study – all sorts of people, mish-mashed in an unusual and fascinating combination. none of the massive highs of the first leg of the walk – no truly stunning views – but also no massive lows – as in, all of the hills were very manageable.
coming into ilfracombe, we headed to our lodgings for the night – had trouble finding it for a bit and weathered, rough-looking locals kept trying to help us. the kind of easy, open kindness one finds in the countryside.
eventually we found our lodgings, settled in and showered before quickly heading back out to get some dinner. we tried to go to a cozy italian place called giovanni & luca (how can you get more italian than that?!) – walked in and it was bustling, older patrons gathered in 2s and 4s over softly lit tables, enjoying themselves, a picture that reminded me of my time in florence with bram – but they were all booked up for the night.
we ended up at a wetherspoons and i ordered a chicken pomodoro. they were all excited to get some drinks, and it made me think of that book i read, “the naked mind”, that said that we condition ourselves to get giddy at even the mention of alcohol, at the idea of relaxation and release that it will bring, and how this feeds into minor alcohol dependency.
i went in at one point to get a refillable mug of coffee and the inside was much busier than the outside. i thought it was a bit of a shame that we weren’t inside. it would’ve been better for all sorts of attention, flowing in and out – better for soaking it in, but also for people watching. i always love wandering around these small towns, where people aren’t used to seeing people like me. i imagine myself to be more beautiful, an elusive little nymph that the locals covet and admire. the reality is likely much more mundane than that, but isn’t it more fun to tell yourself an embellished story?
at our table, the conversation turned to fatherhood – what kind of fathers we want to be, didn’t want to be, what we loved about our own fathers, what we wished was different.
fathers who love us but can only express that through acts of service, no words, physical affection or signs of tenderness unless we initiate, and even then. fathers who are open and patient and kind, and do not pressure us with the hard shape of an identity they’ve chosen for us. fathers who sacrifice everything but remain a mystery, their own story and agency lying hidden behind an only occasionally porous wall. fathers who are quick to anger, who don’t know how to properly regulate their emotions and so turn on their children at the slights of others.
as adults, we can pick these things apart, turn an analytical lens on them to guess at how they’ve shaped us, try to understand what we carry, what we leave behind. but as children, we are simply at the mercy of these forces, and it’s amazing to even start to understand the legacy our fathers leave in our bones, in the ways we experience and exist in the world.
after we were finished eating, everyone started getting very sleepy, so even though we had high ambitions to maybe go out that night, we decided to wrap things up and head home.
9:30AM – BARNSTAPLE
it’s about an hour later and i’m at barnstaple train station waiting for my train, which is in about an hour. i’ve ordered a flat white and an almond croissant, heated up, and i’ve sat down at a table in the station cafe, kind of hidden and tucked away from the people in the main space.
i’m trying to think about what i’ve gotten from this trip, what i can take away and bring home with me to london. all of the rest stops were welcome and moving. stopping at the old churches, thinking about the historically vibrant communities they used to serve. i’d imagine the pews full of people living simpler, perhaps more joyful lives. we bloat our days with so many unnecessary things; there is a joy to stripping it back to basics, and it’s a shame that these ways of life continue to vanish. things have in many ways gotten better, but in many other ways they’ve gotten worse.
but i loved the quiet and stillness of those moments. sitting in the cool space of a very old church, letting myself imagine days gone by, the generations of people who filled the space before me, a sense of God’s presence there with us, lingering in the stale but sacred air.
whenever i stepped into one of those old churches, it was like i was stepping into a slice of history, taking part in something bigger than myself, something that would outlast me. it was expansive and allowed me to let go of myself a little bit, remember that there are forces and realities beyond my limited experience of the present moment. i became a single thread in the broader tapestry of humanity, of all the lives and stories that came before me, that are to come – the endless, ever-shifting sea of voices.
12:20PM – TRAIN TO LONDON
i’m reading katabasis by r.f. kuang and there’s a passage from the book that resonates with me:
They struck a deep nostalgia in her just the same, the nostalgia you got just looking inside brightly lit windows along the street at night; peeking into lives you might just have had. Someone else’s comfort. A warm couch, an old movie humming along on the television. And then your wife or mother or friend joining you from the kitchen, steaming mugs of hot toddies in both hands.
this sense of other worlds only feet away from you. other realities unfolding constantly, other truths revealing themselves in the night. i understand sonder to be the acute awareness that other people have histories and lives as infinitely complex as your own, and suddenly the earth is small but explosive, the universe always expanding with not only matter, but also inner worlds. the immaterial becoming just as substantial as solid, liquid and gas.
2:01PM – ON THE TRAIN
i’ve just woken up from a bit of a nap and i think i’m going to stay awake for the last little leg of this journey. i filled in the last couple of entries of my five year journal and it made me realize that we actually did walk so far over the last couple of days. i think i walked more yesterday than ever before, on any other day in my entire life. by the end of the day, my step count was 36,004, which is about quadruple my average daily step count.
i remember turning back on various points of the walk to see vast distances stretched before us, hills and valleys, peaks and dips – all of the terrain we’d covered – and being completely shocked. you can actually cover more ground than you think in a few hours. now i will look at distances in a different way. hopefully walking in a city with limited baggage will now feel like nothing.
i’m proud of myself, actually, for coming along and doing it. for doing the big walk with my friends. now it’s something else i’ve put under my belt, an experience to tuck away into the folds of my life to look back on, to share. i’ve been to the heddon valley, stayed at hunter’s inn where we waited so long for dinner served by handsome but terribly inefficient young men. i’ve conquered the great hangman, where ally stood on top of a pile of inexplicable rocks and we marvelled at the incredible 360 view all around us and flora said that actually, she wasn’t very impressed. and i’ve stayed in ilfracombe, in a little hidden, tucked-away lodging where we slept to the sound of older men blaring on in a live rock cover band and woke up to the sounds of sea birds and a gentle breeze. i’ve done all these things, and i marvel at it.
people say that parisians are snobby and rude, but i actually found them to be quite kind. in the metro, people actually let others get out of the train before trying to get on, and when everyone’s getting on, they try to accommodate each other, moving out of the way, making room, saying, “pardon, pardon.” it seemed like people actually cared about being a good citizen of the world.
we got there very early on july 13th and had only that day to explore, so we dumped our stuff in the hotel lobby (the room wasn’t available to check in yet) and then got some lunch and explored a cute market nearby.
then went back to the hotel, checked into our room, showered and changed and headed back out to do some sightseeing. everything in paris is so beautiful and romantic. i can see why people call it the city of love. it was actually my second time there, but i was solo the first time and it’s definitely more fun to share the experience. we walked across a bridge above the seine, we passed notre dame and then went to shakespeare and company, a famous bookshop.
inside was sprawling and whimsical, book-lined corridors leading to book-lined rooms, basically the prototype for your most charming, rustic, kind of zany bookshop. there was a reading room upstairs with a window that looked onto the most beautiful view. i think i could die happy if i could read and write there every day. i saw a boy approach another boy and start talking about the books they were reading. later, i saw them leave together, smiling. a meet-cute in the wild! love in the air! paris!
we tried to go to a sandwich place that bre recommended for dinner but it was closed. in our venturing, we ended up at what i assume to be their gay village and had a nice dinner at a restaurant that had a mural of a few gay icons: george michael, freddie mercury, elton john, and cher.
coincidentally, we were in town for the bastille day celebrations because they were having them a day early for some reason. we staked out a spot to watch the fireworks against the eiffel tower. so magical. and the metro ride home wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be considering how crowded the streets were.
early the next day, we headed to provence.
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our airbnb in provence was so stunning, and we had a pool to ourselves. this would be one of my favourite parts of the trip: coming back after a day of exploring in the heat, having a relaxing swim in the evening cool, and catching up with my sister.
on day 1, we went for an afternoon swim after grabbing some lunch and had a poolside photoshoot. got to take advantage of the picturesque amenities.
then we hopped on a bus to explore aix-en-provence. the city was small enough that we became quite familiar with the sights over the next couple of days. we had coffee at the hotel de caumont and saw its beautiful garden, strolled along and admired the cute shops and squares, and then eventually had dinner at jacquou le croquant, a place that our airbnb host recommended. i foolishly ordered their famous cassoulet even though it was so hot, and orpah ordered a whole fish, which was insane but delicious. truly, we should’ve just shared and split both dishes, but we didn’t. now i can’t help but think of those people who go to dim sum and each have a dish for themselves – strange and crazy!
day 2 started with a wine tour, visiting a couple of wineries, sampling the wine. we were with a cute american couple and our funny french guide. at one point he told me i had a good palette and i felt proud. my favourite part was seeing the strange egg-looking contraptions that one of the wineries stored some of their wine in. made me think of aliens.
upon returning to aix, we decided to go on a train tour through the city that also went up to a spot where cezanne famously painted. to its credit, the view of montagne sainte-victoire (that cezanne often sketched and painted) was very beautiful.
apparently there was a world cup game france was playing in that evening. when we arrived back in aix, we got a bunch of picky bits for girl dinner and skedaddled before the game began. we did not want to be there for the chaos. we would later learn that france had lost the game.
day 3 was lavender fields tour day. sadly, most of the lavender had already been harvested and what lavender remained was quite pale because of the heat, so it was a bit of a bust. but the tour included stops at some old villages and our guide even stopped at a place where we could get a nice view of gourdes, the beautiful hilltop village.
we only stopped because there was an older woman on our tour (who was actually very fun and apparently worked as a lawyer in the pentagon) who seemed kind of underwhelmed by everything else and had mentioned something about gourdes, but she ended up not even getting out of the car, which was hilarious. we got to talking to her at one of the villages and apparently she thought orpah and i were a couple.
“it’s nice that you two get along so well!”
when we’re just siblings who don’t hate each other???
when we got back to aix we had dinner at a cute tapas place, and then perused one of the street markets that stayed open late into the night. it was the first time we’d been in the city centre after sunset, and it was so beautiful, really a different kind of charm.
we decided to go to a nice hotel for some oysters and champagne because it was our last night. and then, for some reason, we decided to find a place to go out.
ended up at karaoke at what seemed like a grunge-themed pub, met a cute girl, drank too much beer, and when we got back to our airbnb, it was chaos. drunk packing, no sleep, and then a disgustingly early train back to paris. we napped on the train and napped again in the hotel in paris.
i was leaving for london that same day, so all we really had time to do was grab some food at a cute diner called bouillon pigalle (we were lucky because apparently there’s usually a line), and then find a vintage-y photobooth near the sacre-coeur that my sister heard about from instagram or something.
and so that was paris and provence! whimsical and dreamy and full of life.
if my visa to stay past september ends up getting approved (fingers crossed), i would like to go back to paris and spend more time there. stroll those romantic winding streets, maybe meet a charming man, maybe fall in love.
my sister and i were in cornwall from july 5 to july 8.
a little note on how the trip started: with me, hungover and nauseous on a train. i’d been so good about not drinking, but i went into central the night before to drop my sister off at a dinner and we stumbled into pride.
and instead of heading home, i thought i might as well soak in the atmosphere, find a place to take it all in. so i went to a simmons by myself and sat there drinking a coke, and then a girl asked if she could sit with me and i said yes. she said her friend was coming to meet her, and we ended up talking and hanging out.
“you’re so cute, you should come out with us tonight!”
and one thing led to another, and before i knew it, i was swept up in their orbit, taking celebratory shots, stumbling to bars, getting lost in the hazy buzz of the summer night. i remember a dance floor, and kissing a boy, heat and sweat, and then heading home on the tube in a daze.
so much of a daze that i left my phone on the train, and by the time it disconnected from my airpods and i let out an “oh shit” of sudden realization, the train was out of sight, disappeared into the next tunnel, leaving me stunned on the platform.
thankfully, it ended up with a good samaritan, and after church the next day (for which i was so unfortunately hungover, which was a shame because it was the service following the excitement of our summer fair and it would’ve been nice to be on my a-game), my sister went to south kensington to retrieve it before we had to hop on the train to cornwall.
upon getting my phone back, i looked through the most recent photos – always the most damning evidence of my state of being whenever these things happen. i found a bunch of messy bathroom mirror selfies with strangers spanning from about 1am – 2am, and the last photo was a shirtless picture of me in an empty club at about 5am.
after church, i had a bit of a much-needed rest. i hadn’t gotten any sleep because of the phone fiasco and i was fading fast. and then, at the very last minute, i threw a bunch of clothes and supplies into my new travel backpack and whipped off to paddington to meet my sister.
we agreed to meet at the paddington bear statue, but apparently they move it around all the time and i was having trouble finding it. thankfully, by some miracle, she noticed me aimlessly wandering around and i saw her waving as she beelined over.
she was well-equipped with snacks, and over the course of the train ride, as my stomach settled and i started to feel better, i was grateful for them. and so our cornwall adventures began.
i remember it being around 8pm-ish when we got into hayle, where we’d be staying. our airbnb host, daniel, graciously picked us up from the train station and drove us the less than 10 minutes to the house. his wife, sylvia, greeted us when we came in. they gave us the lay of the land, house rules and arrangements, and showed us to our cozy room.
we put our stuff down and freshened up a bit and then headed out to grab some dinner. the sun was setting and everything was settling into deep greys and blues. it was quiet and serene and i remember thinking it all felt like a liminal space, a bit of a dreamscape.
we found a bangladeshi restaurant called grameen tandoori and everything we ate there was delicious. i starkly remember the grumpy tall ginger man who took our drinks order. but our main servers were a couple of bangladeshi men who bonded with us the way fellow immigrants do – with tales of home and travels, harkening to different aspects of our cultures.
it was darker out by the time we left the restaurant, which shone like an oasis in looming night. even more of a dreamscape, then.
we headed back for some sleep, planning to wake up at the crack of dawn to go surfing.
we woke up early and sylvia was already making breakfast. they would treat us to breakfast for the entirety of our stay – butter croissants, cereal, fruit – little mugs of coffee from their french press.
we took a bus to penzance and then another bus to land’s end for the surfing lesson. the morning was overcast, grey and misty, a striking mood for the day. surfing was fun. i liked the way i looked in the wetsuit. our instructor, jessica, much like many of the locals we would see, looked tanned and wind-swept and i thought her life must feel so free down by the coast. i actually managed to stand on the board for a little bit and i was proud. at the end of the lesson, she gave me and my sister cornish pasties, vegetarian and delicious.
jessica lived in penzance and offered us a ride back so we packed ourselves into her car (already cramped with surfboards) and she gave us recommendations for things to see and places to eat while she drove.
we decided to head over to st. michael’s mount, to walk along the causeway before it submerged under a rising tide, and roam the gardens of the castle. the gardens were filled with all sorts of colourful flowers and plantlife, rising in tiers and levels along winding paths that led upwards to the castle looming above. the day was hot and beautiful and everything made for a pretty picture.
that evening, back in penzance, we had dinner at a place called mackerel sky seafood bar, a tapas place jessica recommended. everything we ordered was delicious, and i remember being particularly blown away by the scallops. i’m always blown away by scallops, to be fair.
took the bus back to hayle, and we stopped at the big lidl on the way to the airbnb to pick up some snacks, including a bucket of popcorn that looked like a cartoon. we watched the rom-com “voicemails for isabelle” before going to bed. it was decent.
the next morning, we made our way over to st. ives to do some exploring. stopped by a photography gallery run by a man who takes wistful, dreamy pictures of the coastal landscapes. he talked to us about the tricks he uses, how he only develops a limited number of prints per series. his photos were admittedly beautiful. his dog laid on the floor, inviting little pats and pets.
then we went to the tate modern and walked around peering at the art under conspicuously bad lighting. in the gift shop, i found a book called “hot victorians: meet your dream man from the past” full of, you guessed it, pictures and biographies of hot men from that time period. i was seriously tempted to buy it, but i was already struggling to fit all of my wares in my travel backpack and didn’t need anything else adding to the weight. i opted for taking photos of the hottest guys instead and posting them on my instagram story for posterity.
had fish and chips from a place a local recommended for lunch. we sat and ate at the beach, wary of any seagulls that might be patrolling on the sand. everyone told us to watch out for them, reminding me of the time a seagull stole three prawns from me as i innocently strolled on a beach in brighton a couple of years ago. viscous little creatures, but i respect the hustle. they stood around, pretending not to take any notice of us, inching ever closer, but we were vigilant and refused them an opening.
we spent the rest of the day idly exploring st. ives. we saw a structure on a hill in the distance, so we went up to it and came by one of the most beautiful views of the whole trip. so beautiful that we were compelled to film a dramatic lip-sync video set to jojo’s seminal classic, “too little, too late.”
on our way back down the hill, we stumbled across a more tucked-away beach. went for a swim and it was so relaxing, shielded from the bulk of the people. it was one of the best parts of the trip. and then we had a lovely dinner at the restaurant just up the beach.
when it was time to leave st. ives, we stopped by a cafe on the way to the bus stop for a late coffee. the barista was notably quite cute. and when we got off the bus at hayle, my sister almost immediately realized she’d left her phone on the bus, which had unfortunately already driven away.
small panic for a little bit, and to distract ourselves we went back to the lidl to get more snacks. a little later, when i checked her phone’s location on the “find my” app, it seemed to be stationary at a bus station, so we called the bus station and they said the phone was safe and sound and to pick it up in the morning. so that’s two phones lost and found in the course of one trip, one for me and one for her.
in the morning, on our last day in cornwall, we went to camborne to rescue her phone. when that was all sorted, we finally dropped by philps to sample their cornish pasties (delicious and filling), and then we went back to hayle and relaxed on hayle beach until it was time to go home. ended up getting on an earlier train thinking we had flex tickets, and then getting kicked off because it turns out we had advance single tickets, forcing us to spend some time truro until we could get onto the right train. honestly, it wasn’t the worst place to get stuck in.
it was a fun trip, full of beautiful scenery and relaxing beaches. i now romanticize life by the coast. it seems so peaceful, and i wonder what it’s like when the tourists are all gone. i imagine standing on the beach at night alone, in that liminal dreamscape from that first night, letting my thoughts wash away into the sea. i imagine a quiet love blooming – two men sitting on a bench close to shore, everything muted and protected and hushed – tenderness in deep blues, shared whispers against the sound of a gentle tide, and the moon, bashfully watching, giving her endless blessing.
my july has been frenetic, non-stop, back-to-back travel and plans. my sister was in london for a wedding and we decided to make a trip out of it, starting with cornwall, then paris, then provence – and in between, my church had a big weekend event, and right after, i did a pilgrimage with a few friends in devon.
and so i haven’t updated my blog because i haven’t had a moment to rest yet. but that moment’s finally come, and here i am, writing on my new freewrite traveler (pictured above), looking through photos, listening to demos of lorde’s virgin that she released for the album’s one-year anniversary (it will always remind me of summer in toronto), combing through recent memories.
i bought the freewrite traveler on ebay after seeing it in a friend’s instagram story. it’s basically a portable word processor, definitely overpriced (especially if you buy it new), and i’ve read online reviews from people who’ve frequently experienced software and hardware issues – but i took mine on the pilgrimage and i’ve been loving it. i wish i’d had it with me for cornwall and france. it’s portable enough to carry in a backpack or a tote; yesterday i even whipped it out on my tube journey home. for most contexts, i find it easier to use than a notebook and pen and so I’ve been writing much more.
i have to finish my writeups for cornwall and france and edit my stream of thought writing from the pilgrimage, but for now, i’ll post a little something i wrote on sunday:
07.26.26 – SUNDAY – 3:28PM
this morning was hazy and i operated, at the beginning, with a low-level frustration fighting to break out. maya called in sick to work yesterday, and with her out and chris covering at another church, i was left as the only staff member at the service. and i was leading worship by myself.
so already, stressors were up more than usual, and then everyone was late for various reasons. then the dishwasher apparently imploded, foam pouring out. I walked into the kitchen to the sight of nick crouched over, frantically wiping at the frothy mess with a random tablecloth. he was actually on time and really made an effort to help, bless him.
and so after last night’s return to finicky bad habits, and waking up disappointed and slightly ashamed of myself – this great dark cloud lingering over me – all of these little frustrations at church and my exhaustion from the pilgrimage and lack of sleep – it all piled up into an ever-growing, imposing mountain casting me in its shadow.
but then, during the pre-service prayer, i prayed a prayer of thanks for God’s presence – that even when we are exhausted and battered and worn out, He is there, and we can find rest in His comfort and peace. and i think even speaking that reality out loud allowed a shift – an externalized reminder of a deeper truth, a change in the story i could tell myself.
people started to come in and i felt the warmth and love of all of us together, and by the time i sat down at the keyboard to start worship, i felt much, much better – stronger and firmer in the day. i breezed through the two kids’ songs i was worried about and really felt a sense of the spirit for the other two songs.
and i thought, “this is the reality of God, that we can turn to Him when we are worn and weary, that we can seek Him in our times of trouble, and He will be there – He will sustain us and pull us through.”
and if it’s all a fantasy, i’m happy to live in that fantasy. i’m happy to believe.
we had our first ever pride service on friday evening, for lgbt+ christians and allies, and it was so beautiful. we were thinking of canceling because of the extreme heat (the terror of the red heat warning!), worried that people would be put off, but we ended up having an amazing turnout. i was genuinely moved by the amount of people who showed up, and i think it was a testament to the importance of what we were doing.
we had worship, alex phennah did a talk, i shared a testimony during a time of response, and chris prayed for us before we had more worship. then we had refreshments and snacks – rosé, wine and cheese, little nibbles, beers – a real time of togetherness and celebration and lots of people stayed for a couple of hours after.
several people came up to me and said they’d felt a palpable sense of the spirit, that they were touched by the service and that the space felt genuinely welcoming, open and free. i was glad because that’s what we were aiming for – to create a safe space where people could come and worship and connect with God and each other in the fullness of who they are, without any caveats or conditions. especially for those for whom that hasn’t always been a reality, for whom it might still not be.
i believe in the power of stories, and for people (like me) who grew up with the story that there is something in the core of who they are that separates them from God, that there is something in their capacity for love, intimacy and affection that God frowns upon and cannot tolerate, that makes them dirty and unholy and unworthy of a place at God’s table – for all of those people, we wanted to tell a different story, a truer story.
we wanted to tell a story of God’s inclusive, unconditional love. one that says that God knows you and loves you, He created you and draws near to you and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. and you don’t have to kill this tender, wonderful part of yourself to be right with God. you don’t have to shove it into a dark corner at the back of a closet in some deep recess of your heart and mind to suffocate in shame. God wants you to breathe, and to live in the freedom, joy and hope of His expansive love.
small-minded people make God small, and for so long, our community has faced such pain, heartbreak and death at the hands of a church that has largely and unflinchingly cast us out, broken our spirit and shamed us into silence. but i have faith that we can tell a different story – one of healing and reconcilation, redemption and hope. we can tell it out loud and people will listen, because God, who is so much bigger than all of this human brokenness, will shine through.
after the service, someone came up to me and said that worshipping in the evening’s style was usually painful for her, a reminder of previous experiences of church hurt – but this evening, in this space, she was able to reclaim that form of worship and sing out loud without the usual pain.
and i thought that was so beautiful, and that’s the important work. instead of destruction, separation and pain, we can sow healing, belonging and love.
how amazing to see so many people brave the heat to be there, and i think it speaks to the fact that people are tired of a story that needlessly yet devastatingly hurts so many of those it claims to love. people are waking up and realizing that love is something else, it’s a different story, and they’re finding that if christians are meant to be a people of love, something is going to have to change.
my prayer is that this pride service is just one step in all of us collectively telling a different story, in our words and actions, in the things that we fight for and speak up about and against. my prayer is that everyone who came to the service will have left with a deeper sense of God’s unfathomable, boundless, fully inclusive and unconditional love, and that we will be empowered to share that love – humbly, gently and compassionately – with the people and world around us, and in this way curb the usual pain and heartbreak and instead allow everyone to flourish exactly as who God made us to be.
went to the lola young concert with sam last friday and her voice is so good.
it was at the o2 brixton and we had brothless ramen for dinner beforehand.
brixton is so vibrant and buzzing in the summer. speakers were blaring and people were crowded onto the streets by the food market. i kept gawking at everyone’s outfits, jealous of the 90s style cropped tees on the guys.
at the concert, while we were waiting in the crowd for lola to come on and sam was in the bathroom, a group of young girls and their gay friend posted up next to me and i could immediately tell the girls were going to be obnoxious and annoying. in my distant youth, i fought girls exactly like them in lines, in crowds, in bars. there’s a specific form of deluded entitlement that blossoms in this brand of girl when she gets drunk, but now that i’m in my 30s, i for the most part let it slide. they’ll (hopefully) grow out of it.
at one point during the concert, one of them spilled a beer all over my side. i turned to look at her and she looked embarrassed and vaguely apologetic, but she didn’t say anything. she kind of just gritted her teeth and swayed. i made a big show of taking my top off, secretly thankful for the excuse because it was boiling in the venue but making sure i looked annoyed.
later on, the girls got into a fight with another group of girls who somehow also ended up beside us. it got to a boiling point during the encore (which was aptly titled “messy”), and they started aggressively shoving and yelling at each other. a couple of guys got involved to break it up. i sort of noncommittally reached out my arm as a limp gesture for them to stop, but really i didn’t care. they were ruining the encore.
as we were all leaving the venue, sam, who had previously been too absorbed in lola’s performance to pay any attention to the commotion, took a keen interest in their drama. apparently their gay friend started to cry as the crowd sluggishly escaped to the open air.
honestly, i’m so glad i was never friends with girls like that (no offense if you are or have ever been a girl like that. and if you are, please practice some introspection 🙏, and if you were but grew out if it, congratulations, i’m so proud of you!).
