How do I make something out of nothing?
The short answer is that I usually don’t.
Today I left the house at 4:24 to watch the sunrise along a riverbank in my sleepy little city. I hoped it would inspire me. I set out into the nautical twilight and watched as the moon gave her last performance of the evening. I wondered if I was the only person watching her fade into the dawn along the river. It took me some time to find the right bench as I wanted a clear view of both the river and the Parliament buildings. When I finally settled on one, I sat down and pulled out a cigarette, placing it between my lips, and lighting it with my favorite lighter. I brought exactly three cigarettes with me but only ended up smoking two. I’m trying to quit smoking right now. As I sparked the cigarette, I looked towards the buildings to my east, and noticed that the sun had begun to crest over the green rooftops. A memory comes back to me of reading somewhere that the roofs of the parliament are actually made of copper but that they have turned green from oxidization over time. I wondered if that was true or not as the sun burned white spots in my vision.
As the sun rose it briefly shielded itself from view behind a tower. Passing behind it gave the windows the illusion of life, light and activity, where there most certainly wasn’t any. It looked so inviting that I began to imagine a great party with paper lanterns and beautiful women in beautiful dresses. My fantasy was short-lived when the brightness again came into view, temporarily blinding me.
My original plan had been to go to the abandoned train bridge near my house and take in this scene there. When I left this morning, I put in my ear buds and chose the best of Tchaikovsky playlist. I have always been quite partial to the romantic composers. Beginning at the Nocturnes I followed the music to the hole in the fence where I normally squeeze through to the bridge. As I approached it, I remembered that some years ago the city had made a huge fuss over a robbery on the bridge and had since beefed up the security. Where the wire fence used to be stood an eight-foot reinforced barricade with a cold metal exterior. On it someone had sprayed “FREE BLACK BRIDGE” in red. It made me smile. Lost in thought, I stood there for some time. When I was a teenager I may as well have lived on that bridge in the summer. We would roll joints from weed we stole from our parent’s stashes and drink 40oz’s of Molson 10.1 we got in hull. I’m glad that people still know about black bridge, even if they can’t always get to it.
This has been a strange summer. The virus was first spotted around December but it took until mid-March for it to shut down Canada. I’ve heard people call it “the great pause”. I think that I agree that it has been a “great pause” of sorts. What struck me this morning, as my eyes were closed and my body was pointed towards the sun, is that my pause started a long time before this. In some ways, I feel that I have been much more productive since the beginning of quarantine. I am creating more, laughing more and talking more to the people that I love. I am lucky to have this realization and to have access to the resources that enable it. I’ve been doing what I want to do rather than only doing what I feel I should be doing. I’m not so sure if my life wasn’t paused more before this. It was like I was in some kind of suspended animation waiting for life to happen.
The sun felt hot on my skin which paradoxically made my body feel cold. I put on my coat and moved to a bench in the shade of a cluster of sumac trees. A small red-breasted song bird and his mate came to wish me a good morning. His song stirred a thought in me. It might be a stupid thought but it was one that made me think about why I was out here in the first place. Birds don’t wait for inspiration, they simply open their beaks and let song out. I should do the same more often and simply write, even if nothing come of it.
This is why I’m starting this blog, I guess. Just to open my mouth and let something come out
