bloomingmost

i’ve had this goal for way too long. it’s time to get this thing done.

when i lived in montreal, i had a roommate, mariano sartorio molochnik (his father was polish) who pined for buenos aires, played backgammon constantly, played such lovely music on his guitar, suffered from epilepsy, and began to teach me to tango, usually when we had had too much to drink. if anyone knows where mariano is, i would love to know. i will in any case learn to tango in his honour.

i did accomplish this goal, really i did. i took a month off last year and went to havana to finish my friggin’ novel. it was wonderful. having made the decision to go was the best part. just doing it! the trip itself, oddly, was kind of secondary - wonderful in its own way, of course, and many adventures were had and friends made - i will always remain most proud of simply having done the thing. it did, however, take me about a year and a half to get over the fact that (yay) i finished my friggin’ novel (and took about a thousand amazing - i thought - photographs) but when i returned to east-side living in vancouver my apartment was broken into and my laptop, notebooks, camera, and pretty much every trace of my novel and month-long trip was stolen, probably by a heroin junkie. as you can tell, i’m sooooo over it now. and yeah. i’m ready to do it again.

i do not want to write to be a writer, although this one thing has confused me for eons. that and wanting to write to be a famous writer. fuck that shit. i think i will now write to:
a) pay more attention (see other goals)
b) keep record of what i knew or thought i knew at one point or another
c) amuse myself later when i look back at it all, shaking my head at my foolishness
d) amuse myself in the process. i love it when i chuckle at something i’ve just written. it makes me want to chuckle at my chuckling.

it’s true! it is a long story (even at 34), and it’s hard to remember any of it if you just go along and fail to notice the small and lovely details. i increasingly believe that by paying attention to precisely these details, one can not only remember more so that at 84 a better story is available to tell, but also live more fully. smell more things. taste things more carefully. love more deeply. and such.