Everything is Nothing but Everything

this is this, this is not something else.

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He Loves Her

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 28, 2022
Posted in: photos. Leave a comment

He Loves Her

He has always been attracted to her. Ever since seeing her for the first time in a long wool winter coat at the bottom of the back stairs in high school, which acted as the Rockers/Stoners, unofficial smoking area. Besides being gorgeous and sexy as hell, she was good people and really no crazier than him, actually less crazy than him at that time.

They have been through so much, both together and apart over the past 36 years. Learned so much, grew so much, gave so much. The daughter they share is a unique manifestation of the best parts of each of them.

Sometimes he wondered what things would have been like without all the drugs and alcohol and their triggered trauma responses. Where would they be now, without having to heal themselves over and over again, new therapists, new traumas, new rips, new repairs, new perspectives, new directions all buffered by a strong friendship and an old love, that seemed older than them both.

“We’re old souls in a new life, baby

They gave us a new life to live and learn”*

The fact that they have kept working at it, is miraculous, but then what is love between two wounded people but miraculous? And what makes people keep trying and not simply running away and moving on to the next perceived easy thing? Maybe the stubbornness of two Taurus’, two years less a day apart, has kept them moving towards.

The love he feels towards her, is with him every morning when he wakes up, every time he breaths in her carbon monoxide, every time their hearts beat together when in embrace, while her hair is tickling his nose and every time he thinks of her when she is not there.

For someone who has spent much of his life keeping people out, he is happy and grateful that he let her in and that she has loved him back.

*Old Souls. Sung by Jessica Parker- Phantom of the Paradise OST.

A Room With No View

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 26, 2022
Posted in: photos. Tagged: black and white, micro fiction, short story, words. Leave a comment

A Room With No View

He woke and looking around, everything was were it should be. He felt safe when everything was where it should be. The concrete floor was still cold, still hard, the paint cans still stacked, the gas cylinder exactly where it was supposed to be. All this familiarity made him feel safe, made this storage closet feel safe. It had been several weeks since he turned the random door knob and found the room open. He made sure to take all of his things when he left for the day, leaving a quarter in the door jamb, in such a way that the door wouldn’t appear unlocked by a casual turn or pull.

Mohammad mostly moved through the city invisibly. On one hand he stood out, with his disheveled clothes, worn out, duct taped shoes shuffling along. Often draped in his dirty sleeping bag. His hair and beard were matted and natty from too long without a brush or a comb or even hot water. Who could not notice him crossing against red lights, weaving in and out of traffic. But in many ways he felt he was invisible, when he asked for change and was ignored, when he saw people cross the street to avoid him, when random people seemed to look right through him.

One could often find him gesticulating and making small talk to his reflection in the windows of businesses up and down Yonge St. The conversations were generally civil though on occasion he would take umbrage by something he said and appear aggressive to those passing by.

Every now and then he would show up at St.Mikes, ED and tell them he was planning to kill himself. He had a long convoluted story that involved rope and the Bloor viaduct. This would usually get him on a 72 hour Form 1 and provide him with a few decent meals, a shave, a haircut, clothing and a new pair of donated shoes.

For now he had a place to call home so he would avoid St.Mikes. He enjoyed locking the door and bedding down on the floor, knowing that everything would be in its place when he woke up. He felt safe.

Brenda

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 24, 2022
Posted in: photos. Tagged: ICM, short story, toronto, words. Leave a comment

This was the view Brenda had after regaining consciousness. Laying on the cold sidewalk, eyes blurry and unable to focus. She could feel a pulling on her right side and through her half closed right eye, she could see a shadowy figure, kneeling beside her and realized that someone was rummaging through her jacket pocket. With all the strength she could muster, she heaved her body away but could tell the effect was little more than a muscle flex.

“What the fuck is happening”, she thought. She could hear a siren, but it felt like it was a thousand miles away, off in a distant country or barreling towards another world, maybe better, maybe worse.

The warmth exuding from her forehead, must be blood, but her arms were still not working, she wasn’t able to test it with the fingers on her hand. The figure by her side was gone now, leaving her feeling suddenly alone and vulnerable.

Trying to sit up, proved to be impossible and she was still unable to roll onto her back or even her side. So she lay there and cursed the sky, the slowly refocusing building above her.

Laying there she cursed the city that had abandoned her to the streets three years ago, when her landlord had her evicted so he could pretend to renovate and double the rent. She cursed those that had called her crazy, when she felt good and went off her meds, she cursed the hospital staff that refused her treatment because they assumed she just wanted in from the cold, she cursed the cops that woke her up and made her move along when she grabbed a nap at Union Station or in the underground PATH. She cursed the driver of the car that rolled through the stop sign at Mutual and Gerrard, hitting her and sending her eight feet sprawling her across the wide sidewalk.

But she smiled when the ambulance pulled up and the two EMS jumped out and seemed to actually care as they assessed her wounds and treated her with respect.

Mom’s

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 20, 2022
Posted in: photos, words. Tagged: short story, toronto, words. Leave a comment

The sign said “Mom’s Deli”, which suggested an old school cheese and meat shoppe, maybe old world comfort foods, but Mom was my grandfather George and his place didn’t serve much comfort. The place consisted of a couple of wobbly tables with mismatched chairs. It also had a low lunch counter that seconded as a bar and “mood lighting”, which really just meant, dim low lights.

 

My great-grand parents came to Canada in 1941, in the middle of World War Two, to escape the creeping tyranny they saw happening around them in Thessoloniki, north Greece. Like Italy the intelligencia were enraptured by the fascists, though the peasants knew better and my great-grandfather George, knew that the illegal schemes he was caught up in would get him shot, sooner rather than later. So he gathered all the drachmas he could and secured himself and his pregnant wife Athena passage abroad on a steamer by bribing a galley worker from his village. The ship, filled with olive oil, took two months to cross the ocean allowing them to get the hell out, slowly and safely. They only knew they were headed to North America and nothing about Canada.

Shortly after arriving in Canada George had our last name changed from Papadopoulas to Phillips to get rid of the Greekness after hearing about the 1918 anti-Greek riots in Toronto, where Greek owned businesses on Yonge street were trashed by xenophobic mobs over three days. Never mind his thick accent, my great grandparents were Canadians now.

After the riots the bulk of newly arrived Greeks, set themselves up on Danforth Avenue, George and Athena moved into a small rooming house on Sumach Street in what was then the Irish Ghetto of Cabbagetown. George had a couple of old world hustles that he used to build up a small nest egg, over the next several years. Though prohibition had ended in Ontario in 1927, the puritanical laws around access to alcohol still meant there was a viable business selling booze late at night and on Sundays. Since bootlegging brought George into contact with all kinds of people he inevitably started fencing the stolen goods people showed up with to trade for a late night snort.

By the time my grandfather, George was in his twenties, his father George, bankrolled him to set up a restaurant on Parliament street. This allowed George Sr., to sell booze out the backdoor, while giving his son an honest direction in life. George Jr., my father, started running the place in 1980, forcing me to help out there after school and on weekends.

While the sign said “deli”, there wasn’t much in the way of food. Some cooked sticks of chicken and pork, some rice, some potatoes. George would open a couple of cans of soup in the morning and leave them to warm on low all day, calling it his homemade special. The real business was beer. He would serve up trays of half-pints, 24 for $20 or $1 each, of foamy, room temperature draughts that the neighborhood couldn’t get enough of.

I remember one day after school I was unpacking a box of beer glasses that had arrived directly from Germany. I asked my baba why he would buy beer glasses directly from Germany, when there were plenty of restaurant supply stores around the city.

“Take a good look at the glasses son”, he said with a mischievous grin.

“They look just like the ones we already have”, I replied, puzzled.

“Okay now fill one of the old ones with water and pour into a new one”, he told me.

I did as he asked and was surprised when the new one overflowed.

“What’s going on?”, I asked incredulously.

“The new ones are 6 ounces and the old ones are 8. However they are the same size, shape and weight, so no one will know the difference. From now on for every $1 glass of beer I serve I will make an extra 25 cents, fuck those bums coming here and getting mouthy with my waitresses”. He said with the pride of a politician who figured out how to game the system, to their benefit.

CKLN

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 19, 2022
Posted in: photos. Leave a comment

CKLN was 88.1 in Toronto, college radio at its finest.

Turned me on to some great Punk, Jazz, Industrial, Techno and Hip Hop. Always ahead of the game.

Snow Daze

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 17, 2022
Posted in: photos. Tagged: snow, toronto, words. Leave a comment

“I can’t come over now”, Sarah said with resignation sounding in her voice as she left a voice message on Veronica’s phone. She was desperate to see Veronica again but unable to leave her apartment.

It had been 2 weeks since they met in the back room of the Church Street bar. Making out on the sweaty dance floor, had been liberating after two years of involuntary celibacy. She had been looking forward to this follow up date, after all the back and forth texts between them since that memorable Saturday night.

The problem was the snow. It snowed so much overnight that the entire City had come to a standstill, closed highways, public transit a mess, but those weren’t the reasons for canceling.

While it was helpful to know that she wasn’t the only one, her diagnosis of chionophobia, gave her the knowledge that she couldn’t be the only person afraid of the snow, since there was a term for it.

PTSD

Posted by everythingisnothingbuteverything on January 13, 2022
Posted in: photos. Tagged: black and white, healing, words. Leave a comment

I stood there.

I just fucking stood there, not sure if I was headed in the right direction. Gripped by something from deep inside of me. I felt paralyzed, incompetent and afraid nebulous feelings that I couldn’t control.

Having spent so many years in therapy, I knew it was simply a response to my early life trauma. I knew I was in a dissociative fugue of one sort or another. Fight, flight or freeze were the trio of options my limbic system was providing, even though a part of me knew what was happening, I was still stuck in freeze, as usual.

My brain was shutting down, my hearing had become muffled, vision blurry. People were jostling around me with their shopping bags and over sized purses. Bumping and bashing into me, though not enough to make me move. I could hear the torrent of abuse coming at me,

“get the fuck out of the way”,

“Hey asshole you’re blocking my way”.

But there I stood, looking up, tears in my eyes, like my 7 year old self, looking for his Mother at Fairview Mall, that fall day long ago when I got lost in the Simpsons store.

My trance was finally broken by the scent of a familiar perfume, that was both comforting and repulsive at the same time. I heard the question, “Are you okay?” and saw the kind expression on an elderly Asian woman’s face, her clear dark eyes brought me back to ground.

She was walking around me to get on the escalator, our eyes locked as she appeared to magically move up and away from me without the assistance of human propulsion.

I was back and as I smiled towards her diminishing figure, I thought, “ What the fuck am I doing at the Eaton Centre, anyway”.

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