She is the best friend I always wanted and I had to leave her behind in Scotland.
There are days when I think of her smile and I tear up. I have never missed having a friend like her in my life as much as I do now. I've spent my whole life moving miles away from where I was and I never had best friends to leave behind. This is all new to me.
Only today did I remember that I took this photograph shortly before I left for Canada. It is the most natural I have ever caught anyone and if you knew AnnaLee you'd know what a feat that is. She is always very aware of the camera. Not this time though.
I miss her and her face and her cynical sense of humour and most of all her soft voice. My life just isn't the same without her.
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So, I guess the summer is drawing to a close. This is okay, I adore the autumn (or should I say fall now I am in Canada?). Either way, I really love it. The air is lighter and this somehow feels cleaner and less oppressive. I can sit in the afternoon sun or I can ride up a steep hill without rivers of sweat engulfing me. It's a romantic time of year; a season in which I can lose myself and forget about what I am on this planet for. I can wrap myself in the surroundings that are falling all around me, waiting to be buried by the death of winter.
The smells are thick and my senses are assaulted from all angles. Eating soup is now a moment to be relished, smothering the bread in its warm and gooey richness. Soon September will be over before I know it and I can wear coats and scarves again. I can leave the house without fear of damage from the sun. I can look into the sky and see the clouds towering above me swelling and swelling until we have one of the famous rainfalls that people so seem to hate around here. (Of course, I love them).
I can drink hot coffee and tea and snuggle and bask in their warmth. The beaches are more deserted and more beautiful than ever; their sands no-longer troubled with litter and forgetfulness. Colours of the autumn are my favourite part. I find them much more thick and rich and ripe than those of the traditional spring and summer. I would rather walk scuffing my shoes in the reds and browns and yellows at my feet than stop and marvel at the obnoxious and obvious flowers.
It is for these reasons and many more I love the autumn so. For me it is a time of renewal. When everything else is getting ready to die and sleep I am awakening to see and smell and touch and taste the marvels and riches that summer has left behind.
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I think I forgot to show you photos from Vancouver's annual lantern parade; Illuminares. It happened sometime in July. Here are a few of my favourites:
drewyoon said this about this photo on flickr:
mmmmm nice.
hear: piano across the lake
taste: cigarettes and bitter wine
feel: a slight breeze and the warm hand of a girl.
It touched me. I am glad that sometimes my photos inspire these feelings/thoughts/daydreams.
A thing that is a little perplexing to me, since this is my first autumn in Vancouver is the leaves. Now a few leaves have dropped already and there they lie in all their red and brown and yellow glory at the side of the road. The only problem with this image is that none of the leaves on the trees have turned yet. Where are these phantom leaves coming from?* I wonder if it is always this way in Vancouver.
*This is rhetorical, please don't answer.
Last but not least...
My ship awaits it's voyage.
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Right after I told you about the book I mentioned in my last entry I read another. I read it in 4 hours in one non-stop sitting (or laying in bed) as I couldn't fall asleep. This is only the second book I have ever read in such a short time span.** As I keep telling you I am an excruciatingly slow reader. If you were to read this book and you were enjoying it as much as I you would probably finish it in just an hour or two.
** The other book (in case you wondered) was The Outsider by Albert Camus, in English. In French it took me two days.
It is about a teeny tiny village far north on the Scottish coast. It is about a girl who lives in a strange slanty house who's mother dies. It is about a blind lighthouse keeper who takes her in. It is about him teaching her how to tell stories, to keep the sailors alive and to give them hope. It is about stories of the real Jekyll and Hyde, the one that Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote the book about.
It is about adultery and secrets and everything that haunts a man of God. It is about the automation of the light houses in the UK. It is about a young woman's journey to find out what the world is really like outside of her tiny village. It is about her discovery of how stories are retold in the modern world and her yearning for a simpler time. It is about her finding her missing lighthouse keeping guardian. It is about love, stories, myths and legends. It is about magic.
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Tell me about the last book you finished...
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P.S
Goodbye, Pavarotti; one of my favourite humans.
(Thanks Alyk)
