june 7 2024
I pop an Ativan like a tictac and stand in line to board with Zone 3. We are going to St. John’s and I play tomorrow night. The Uber ride to the airport took an hour and my flight is delayed by another twenty minutes. I wonder to myself about all the time I’ve spent waiting to get somewhere and then waiting to come back. I don’t mind. I think that life is all about waiting - for the next day, the next year, a new place, another stage. We wait for love, respect, revelation, revenge. We wait and then we die.
I’m in a bad mood but flying is no longer a problem now because I have these drugs. I hide the bottle from myself when I’m at home - they scare me. The last thing I want is to accidentally become a benzo bimbo but my flight anxiety was reaching critical mass. It was either this or hypnosis and I don’t like the idea of someone playing around with my mind. My grip on sanity is tenuous at best, bestie.
We board the flight. We take off. We fly over rain clouds the whole way through. We land. Easy. No problem. It’s almost midnight. The hotel room is cute and clean and I cry for an hour then fall asleep quickly. That night, I dream very deeply about nothing in particular.
When I wake up, I click a button to raise the blinds and look out at the world. I can see the harbour from here. I feel better today. I close my eyes and dig around inside my head for a few minutes.
For much of this year, I’ve been cocooning, swaddling myself in my room and my studio. I feel lost. I feel anxious. I feel angry at myself for not being happy. It’s always like this when change is on the way. And change is definitely on the way. I see her, on the horizon, winking at me. She’s glowing. She’s vivid. I’m purging.
It’s me, a star, collapsing, being born. I know it.
I spend the day walking up and down the hills of St. John’s. It doesn’t rain. I take a lot of pictures. The show goes well. I don’t sleep that night. We fly back to Toronto through thick, swollen membranes of fog. I watch the wing of the airplane break through the surface. I close my eyes and lean my face towards the window so I can feel the sun.
