snow, mobile

Another winter solstice has come around, and a new year of the Gregorian calendar has begun.  It's a bissextile year this one: we'll get an extra day.

That's one extra day for me to slowly send my roots into new ground.

Sainte-Sabine: a small church, a lake, and countless pine trees.

It has been a different type of in-between.  In one respect, it is a familiar place; it's not the first time I fly back to Québec to spend the holidays with my family and friends.  Though I used to fly back to San Francisco afterwards, and leave the snow behind.
This time, I'm not flying anywhere.  I'm settling in for a winter in Montréal.  I bought my first pair of winter boots in over fifteen years.

This is a new challenge.  Because this time I am not merely passing by; and I have no excuse of being a mere ''resident alien''.   Yet I'm not merely ''coming back'' either.  I am re-inserting the matrix, it's true; but I have changed so much over the past ten years that I'm not sure how it's all going to look.

I'm even surprising myself: I can't wait to start exploring my new ''chez moi''.  For now I'll be spending a few more days at my parents' place, in this suburb of Québec city.  Spending time with them is good; it's comfortable (in one way) and nourishing.  The place is awesome, the sound system is of good quality (I had been craving surround sound while traveling around!), and my mother's cuisine is extraordinary.  But I am waiting for my driving records from the California DMV to come through in order to get my driver's license here, which means that I am currently depending on my parents for transportation...
How radically opposite from the independent space I was in a few weeks ago!






I haven't been able to write as much.  Perhaps it's the holidays, perhaps it's the lack of stimuli, perhaps I am blocked by the idea that I am now much more exposed, since I am not running away anymore.  These people have known me forever; somehow it is much harder to reveal my inner most thoughts and feelings when I know that I have to interact daily with the people who read me.
I find myself in [at least one chamber of] the heart of the challenge: integrating my creativity and my power, my passion, my individuality and my vulnerability into this new life, within the matrix.




Meanwhile, more amazing blessings have kept gracing my existence.  I can barely believe it.  And so... my heart keeps overflowing with gratefulness...

My little friend Claire - with her daddy and mommy - came to Québec city!
How freakin' wonderful is that?
We had five days together: December 26th to the last day of 2011.
I had made a list of interesting sites for them to visit: the Vieux-Québec, but we all rapidly accepted that it would be difficult to delve into the cultural riches of this city, since Claire had no other interests than the white snow covering any given street.  She wanted to step in it, touch it, taste it, pack it, throw it.  She wanted to play in it forever... What a sight to behold!

Snow angel

We all went to Sainte-Sabine, which is an hour and a half south of Lévis.   My aunt and her partner have a cabin there, so my parents stayed with them and Claire's family and I stayed in a vacation house nearby.  The schedule: sliding outside, drinking Unibroue bottles (or hot coco), going for snowmobile rides in the woods, sliding some more, translating between French and English, eating lots of chocolate, sitting around a fire, sliding some more, watching the stars, reading stories in French...

And on new years' eve, they joined our annual party with another group of French-speaking family friends.  How can I describe the significance of this?  These people have seen me grow up since I was Claire's age; they are the village that made me who I am today.  And there they were, welcoming my family from California with such warmth and such love!  I will forever remember the sight:

Claire is exhausted.  Her dad and mom have decided it is now time to go back to the hotel (their flight leaves at eight o'clock on january 1st).  They are putting their winter jackets on, their boots, their hats.  They are telling Claire to say goodbye to everyone.  Everyone is standing at the top of the stairs, waving their hand, fighting a tear.  I, am standing in between the two clans.  I am standing in the staircase, my heart swollen with the love I have for Claire, my surrogate daughter who is leaving me on a jet plane.  Or is it me leaving her?
A goodbye, again.  A goodbye but such a... bridge!  There is such warmth and such emotion in the room.  I'm thinking: ''this intensity and this love, it is who I am and what I want to share.  I'm hoping it reaches and enriches Claire's unconscious.  I hope it can influence her journey in a positive manner.
From a more ego-centric place, I also like to think that these encounters have helped everyone -Québécois and Californians - understand where I'm coming from... that is, where I came from and where I've been.  I hope it fills them all with confidence, that essentially.. it's all good.

I am so excited to see it all unfold.

My dad pulling Claire on a makeshift cardboard sled!
Saint-Romuald

This is the Point, dot dot dot

After writing my morning blog today I went out to meet up with Lynn.  It was ten o'clock, and a glorious september sun bathed the Mission district.  I walked to Ritual Cafe, sat on a stoop outside, and took out my book: "Learn German the Fast and Easy Way."  You see, I studied German for about six years already, and I've been pleased to find that it is coming back to me fairly rapidly!
Lynn arrived and I suggested we go to Arizmendi Bakery instead, because I love their products, and their ethics.  (It is workers owned).  We caught up a little bit, "what's up with you?" "How are things?"  "How have you been?"  Our conversation quickly led to ponderings on relationship, sexuality, gender, and intimacy.  Lynn is a marvelous being, a noble man.  He's going to be a great teacher.  I am infinitely grateful that our paths have crossed, for I have grown and I am a better person having met him.

You see, it's these relationships that I am "leaving behind."  It's things like that that break my heart...
I was meeting Claire's grandma in front of pre-school, for pick-up, and had invited Lynn to meet my little friend.  Grandma invited him for lunch, and we ended up sitting at Barney's in Noe Valley, with Claire's grandfather, AT, also joining us.  The thing is, both AT and Lynn are history teachers at the high school level, and both have an interest in policy and the way history is taught.  Lynn has studied a lot about "The Harlem Renaissance", and AT possesses the largest collection of Jazz I have ever seen!  I was sure the two would hit it off.

There was a theme today.
What form does it take?  What is the point of my blog?  How does one present, or "sell" one's self?  Here we are, looking for employment as teachers, and as artists.  How does one focus and convey one's intention?
My mission statement: To be a mirror.  To reflect.

This blog might seem like an mere outlet for the ceaseless musings (didn't I call it as such?) of one individual in three millions.  This blog might seem hopelessly idiosyncratic, and amorphous... somewhat scattered.. I call it windy.
I would love to see it take a more pointed direction, a more concise function, a more defined reason.  I would love "finding a niche", reach a specific group of readers, answering that one specific set of questions.
But it has been my belief for a long time now, that the world needs a dose of tumult, of unreason, of anti-linearity, of ex-pression.
Yes, my blog is subjective.  I am a Nietzschean after all, having undeniably unconsciously created my own appropriation.
So while a part of me wants to offer more of a "package", I'm obviously struggling to convey another conviction...


That the form is content.

The form is content.

And after work I played soccer in the backyard with a nine year old boy and his father Victor.  We juggled, we chatted; we had a sweet connection.
Then I mounted my bike and found my way to Lara's Art Opening, at a neat tapas restaurant on Bryant and 21st street.  Lara's work is phenomenal.  It's more than paintings, it's a full-on revolution!  Here is the Artist statement she posted on her website:



I am a visionary with a great mission: to inspire people to follow their dreams.
My Art is made intuitively. I go through a process of coming down from my head into my heart with the intention of meeting myself, the moment and the unknown, to allow my feelings to lead the way. 
I intend to create images that will provoke a sense of wonder and strong emotional release in the viewer. 


Amongst the people present, a woman by the name of Stefunny.  She has left a book on the table we are sharing; it's a classic: "The Ethical Slut".  She is talking about some neurobiological studies, and about the way in which institutionalized (my word) monogamy is more damaging to our society than we think. According to her - and I have to say that I agree - "monogamy imposes limitation on our creativity and our potential for evolution.  It is perhaps ultimately undesirable, because it is unsustainable."
"But it takes a certain kind of awareness to live out a polyamorous lifestyle," I suggest.
"Yes, polyamory is difficult, it requires effort, and self-love, and honnesty," she follows, "and that's why I wanna assist people in developing this awareness."

The Heart is the Crucible

This is the point.  Perhaps... All that's "mono" is unsustainable.  It's unrealistic, dishonest, obsolete.
I want to love it all.
I want to grow within this web.
I want to inter-connect



I want to write a blog that inspires by reflecting just that.
I want to remember this magic.
I want to be a messenger and a conduit for this revolution I've been witnessing here, on the left coast of Amerika.

Big Mountain

 Where am I?

I'm sitting in a sunny cafe of "the Castro", in San Francisco, California.  I'm drinking a chai latte.  I want to write about so many things...



Like waking up before sunrise in yet another one of the myriads of quaint - and often luxurious- apartment in the city.  Loading a grey Saab with boxes of stuff to go store them in "my employers" garage (as I often put it, though generally followed with "but you know... they've been more... like friends...like... you know... angels?"

I want to write about going to church in Oakland that same day, at 9am.  I'd like to convey the experience, but I doubt I could...

There is something about singing, early in the morning, with an assembly of black people and white people, kids and teenagers, young adults just like me, and people "in their prime".  And there is something about the presence of elders...
So we sing:
"I woke up this morning with my mind, set on Spirit
 I woke up this morning with my mind, set on Spirit
I woke up this morning with my mind, set on Spirit
Hallelu... Hallelu... Halleluuuujah"
(this is Oakland, California)

At 2pm, I'm playing dress up with CoiCoi.  She's an old man and I'm a boy, and so we laugh.  We head out to 19th & Franklin for an afternoon at Oakland Pride.  "I wonder what we're supposed to do here," she comments, "you know?"  "Yes," I answer with a smile, "you mean you need to know what's expected of you?" I hope I didn't say something... inappropriate (this is a euphemism, by the way).  But she replies "oh is that what it is?"  We laugh.  We don't really know what's expected of us; it's true... Should we check out the information booths, the food vendors, the artisans... Should we consume?  Well, I guess it's what they call a market, isn't it?  It's a place where people come together and exchange, it's the place where we inter-act.
At its best it's also a crossroads where we celebrate and where culture happens.  It's a place where consciousness changes.  And in the consciousness of this fact, it's an event within which we get to witness our collectivity.
And we dance!

It's sunday afternoon and the sun is bright.  Dancers and singers, drag queens and women hip hop duets, poets and djs are blasting their creativity out to crowds of curious passerbys and drunken teenagers, queers everywhere!  There's now more or less four of us, Phoenix and Fei have joined and we're meandering the streets aimlessly, dancing here and there, moving on and catching up...
We head to an after-party around seven, and of course, the place is quite empty.  But my dancing shoes are possessed. ('Cuz after all I did wake up this morning with the Spirit on my mind, which is my body.)

Ecstasy, at Octavio and Hayes, SF.

I'll dance, non-stop, until midnight.  I think I was a bit entranced, or perhaps rather, manic.  I couldn't stop dancing, feeling, MUSIC, MOVEMENT, and immense gratitude..


Sometimes I think that my dreams are my reality.. at least it has seemed this way for a short while now.  How can I be so blessed to encounter such abundance?  How can I be surrounded by so many angels, in a region of the world so gorgeous and magical, in the sunshine, writing alone, waiting for the next time I'll get to dance?  And what am I to make of my privilege?

And I want to write about "my job", which is not quite what I would call "a job."
My role is to answer the questions of a "three and three-quarter"'s year old while taking a walk, kicking fallen leaves and smelling the flowers!  My role is to make sure she is safe, physically, but also it's to not screw her up too much psychologically... my job is to remember that we are each other's teacher, and to learn to relax (it is such a contradiction).  My job, is to not beat myself up too much when I think that I'm not good enough, that I'm not present enough.. that I'm tired and lazy, and... un-creative (? - Unimaginative is the best antonym for creative.)
You get the picture.
My job is directly related to my Masters degree.

And is there even such a thing as unimaginative?
-These thoughts I have while I'm with Claire, isn't that imagination too?-

with Claire and Grandma, at Stern Grove

My role is to be one of the teachers in a young child's life.  I hope I've done okay.  I hope she remembers the times we picked plums off the trees, I hope she remembers the laughs we shared, the music we made, the banana breads we baked, the physical comedy and the finger paintings, the songs and the stories..
My heart swells when I think of all the things I wont get to see her learn and grow into.  I don't think I'd had this realization before.  It's a loss, a deep letting go.
But as I've often sang to her: "Things they come, and things they go. And that's what thing you ought to know".

Freedom?!