I come in piece

[toys, missed]

When I was a kid, my favourite toy was lego. I didn’t have many toys, and those that we had mostly belonged to my brother. Lego was my toy, and it was a versatile toy, letting me build other toys. I built starships and tanks, I built homes and restaurants, I built whole other worlds with these lego blocks, a whole new life in my head. Lego was tactile too, my fingers pushing down onto the blocks or slipping as I pulled them hard apart. I can still feel the interlocking studs, feel them rubbing against my pencil callus on my finger.

I was a shy kid, didn’t talk much to strangers. I always observed, sized them up before saying anything, before giving anything away that I might not be able to take back. It wasn’t that I didn’t like talking or had nothing to say. On the contrary, I couldn’t shut up when you got me started, if you got to me, got to my heart. In school, I remember my grade 1 teacher, possibly in frustration, made me read my stories in front of the class. Miss Auckland had hoped that it would make me open up, and break out of my shell. I remember writing stories about pirates, spaceships and soldiers. I remember building these worlds, with words I couldn’t say to my classmates, and writing them out on giant flipchart paper. I read these words aloud to the class and remember vaguely feeling that they listened, felt the words forming pictures in their minds, feeling what I had felt. Even today, when I write, I can feel the words, feel just like those tactile blocks, taste them in my mouth, the sounds of the words tickling my tongue, making me hungry, making me feel like my mouth is full, so full that words cannot help spilling out, onto the page, my notebook, the computer.

I still feel like that kid in Miss Auckland’s class. I’m not sure how to come out of my shell, when I can stop feeling reserved and holding back. I have this smile at work, that smile that looks so bright and so happy, and so alien. It’s not really me.

Sometimes I feel like I’m falling apart. I’m not sure how I can keep it together, my smile just holding back a torrent of emotions, mixed up teardrops of happiness, waves of sadness. Maybe it’s because I haven’t built a new world, play with my words in a very long time. Except for my blog, I have not written much of anything. My spaceship is in pieces, the lego was given away a long time ago to the kids of some old family friends. Now, I wonder if I can fly somewhere faraway, dream that new life, write those words down, and read them aloud to you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Holidays are over, but I still haven’t got the photos of our Christmas dinner uploaded from Y’s camera. There’s a blog post in there somewhere, in that Christmas dinner. Instead, Y found Kino's photos of our trip to Québec for Thanksgiving. He tossed the disk to me before he went off to Japan for a couple of weeks to meet up with Y2. So, enjoy these photos for now. Maybe by Valentine’s, I’ll have the Christmas post completed… if I don’t get swept up in some crazy romance. (well, I can dream, can’t I?)

This photo, I believe, was taken by some Japanese tourist for us, when we were walking in Old Québec. Unfortunately, our feet are cut off. I think she was really short, that Japanese lady. Or was it the husband who took our photo? It was a glorious day, cool and sunny. Autumn is my favourite season, and so Thanksgiving is always a favourite too.

Kino took this photo of the Chute Montmorency. It’s only 5 minutes away from momo’s house. I envy Y growing up so close to such a beautiful falls. I can never get bored of visiting the park and walking along the suspension bridge, looking out onto Québec and the St-Lawrence.