Thursday, September 1, 2016

fail.



i failed.

as we approach a new back-to-school season and the constant evaluation and feedback and lists and notes, it is imperative to note the current state: failure. i have spent the last seventeen years in this city, and i have failed to succeed in it. in all its concrete and dirty alleys and beautiful parks and winding singletrack, the city has spit me out like a used pallet in the don at springtime. and now i'm good for nothing but a seagull perch. i hate seagulls.

the realization of failure is important. i understand it because my recent fascination with knives and forest adventure and 'bushcraft' skill is merely a pursuit of agency in a city that took all of mine from me. i want to play in the trees and make stuff with really nice knives and a minimum of cord. reading that statement, you will see the most important part: i want..to make stuff. in seventeen years of living in this town, i failed to make stuff. i had a really big photograph that i shot on commission, had custom-framed, and showed in a swank restaurant on king west. it was stolen from me by deadmau5, a dj who makes more in a night than i will in two years. speaking of making money: i can't even hold down a job. two degrees and thousands of hours of experience seem to mean nothing here. secret handshakes from old boys' clubs, old money, and the relentless pursuit of status upgrade are the way. those are not skills i know. i did not learn them. i failed.

i made my family here. i got my education here. i worked and worked and worked here. i grew up here. i became the best me i could here. i learned how to run here. i built bikes and rode them here. if you ask me where i'm from, i'll usually say here. my whole life is here. and i still live paycheque to paycheque, i still barely make the rent, i still don't have a million dollars or a secure job or a place to do the things i love. there is nowhere my art may be done, or may hang. there are no woods to play in or places to build forts where a bylaw won't kick us out. and everywhere, from the door to door scammers to the parking cops to the raccoons and seagulls, there is something trying to take my happiness away. and my happiness is eating breakfast right now with her mouth closed, mostly, and my other happiness is folding the laundry, and they love it here. this place is their place, born and raised, and they make it beautiful. they don't know that i can't make the rent every time, or that i'm a failure at the age of 35, or that knives can be anything other than tools. they know the best of me.

so while my knives sit in boxes on my dresser, and my cameras gather dust because i don't have the guts to use them, i will plan a new day in a town that neither loves nor hates me; it just doesn't care. happy september.