23:17:04 Hello! Hi, friends.
23:17:08 I'm in, uh… Vancouver, um, Coast Salish land… on the west end of the city.
23:17:19 Visiting my friends… And… Their balcony overlooks… an ocean… So I'm sitting here on the balcony, and I can… listen to… The sounds of the waves… There's some seagulls flying around.
23:17:39 I can see… the constellation Leo… On my right… I can see Mars… I can see Ursa Major, the Big Bear just above me… Uh, a little bit of Cancer, and Gemini to my right.
23:18:06 Uh, there is, like, you know, a little bit of, light pollution.
23:18:10 Obviously… I'm in a city, but… And because I'm on a, uh.
23:18:19 High up… floor, I am, um… you know, I feel as though
23:18:26 I can't really lean over the edge of the balcony, um… Because the balcony railings are actually made of… glass, too, so it's… pretty trippy. Um, yeah, so… I've been having an awesome time here.
23:18:48 Uh, last week. I had sent my… you know, one of the first times that I had just recorded audio and sent it out to y'all.
23:18:56 And I heard back from a few of my friends. Some of whom I sent it to, and others who… receive it in their email.
23:19:08 And they had beautiful things to tell me about my voice, and… how it's been feeling to hear it, and they were very encouraging, so… I am continuing on this path.
23:19:22 I've also felt… You know, just really grateful Um, that I get to do this, and even though… you know, I still put a little bit of thought and effort into showing up to this. I am feeling a lot more easeful about the idea of doing this on a regular basis, so I really appreciate those who reached out to me.
23:19:48 Um, I also got some good feedback about how it might… it was hard to pause and resume, and… Uh, my friend had to keep going back and seeking to the point at which they had left off.
23:20:04 Uh, so I did tell him that I am… going to be working on you know, making sure that… There's a, um, you know, an RSS feed of some sort, so that you can just add it to any podcast app, so it should work
23:20:21 Um, more normally than having to… look at or listen to audio from my website directly, so… I'm gonna be working on that, but if there are other accessibility needs that you have.
23:20:37 And it would be important… for you, uh, let me know, and I can prioritize… Accordingly, um… Because access is really important, and… I care that my work is accessible, and… I have found that I tend to, uh, you know.
23:20:59 In the same realm of Perfectionism that I often talk about.
23:21:03 Tend to, uh, you know, prioritize access in such a way that I won't… I will use it as a way to procrastinate on what I actually have to do. It took… it took… a lot for me to send it out last time without
23:21:21 Transcription, because it's something that I depend on so much, and I so appreciate when people, creators.
23:21:29 Artists, podcasters, uh, transcribe their content and send it out. And I thought, how could I do this? But… I also wanted to just allow myself to… leave it be incomplete, leave it be… okay, because, you know, something that, um, Ayana, who…
23:21:52 runs Seeda School, talks about, or talked about, uh, I think it was in one of their podcasts, and the podcast is called For the Worldbuilders.
23:22:02 And the idea that sometimes we can be, um, you know, so focused on making things accessible to others that we forget to make it accessible
23:22:14 To ourselves, and that's… definitely rung true for me, so I've been… you know, trying to be incomplete and imperfect, as you all know very well.
23:22:27 As I've been continuing to talk about that. Yeah, I wonder if you can hear the ocean. Probably not, if… You know, the noise cancellation on this is good, but… I can just hear the ocean back and forth, and I've been feeling so…
23:22:45 Grounded, and like myself, and in this place, I just… I don't know what I expected, but… I'm so glad that I am here.
23:22:56 Oh my gosh, and there's, like. Loud bikes on the street, so maybe you're hearing that.
23:23:04 That's…
23:23:10 Yeah… just being right by the ocean has been… Such a game changer for me, I just… Um, you know, these days I stay up pretty late, so I go to bed closer to 3, and then I wake up maybe at 11 or so.
23:23:25 This might sound… you know, completely wild to you Or maybe it feels super normal to you, but… I had to learn a lot about… sleep schedules, and how things might work for different people.
23:23:42 And, you know, this has been… working-ish so far for me, but… I feel like I'm a… you know, a teenage boy… I am out and about in the middle of the night, and… I can come home back to my friends at any time, because they don't care.
23:24:05 Um, and I can… I don't know, like, I was on the beach… Almost all night, I think I went around midnight, and I was there till 3.30 or so.
23:24:18 And there were people on the beach, in and out, like, there was maybe 2 minutes or so that there was nobody on the beach.
23:24:25 But the rest of the time, it was just me, and I saw that entire moon set behind the mountains.
23:24:33 The moon was gibbous, and Scorpio. It was just beautiful.
23:24:40 Then the sky got dark enough, and I got to see more stars.
23:24:44 And, you know, it's not, you know, one time I went to… Mount Rainier, um, one of my… niblings had a… kind of a kid's, um… astronomy, um… a tour of some sort, and we got to see the night sky, and they had set up telescopes and everything, and it was probably one of the best
23:25:09 Views of the night sky that I have experienced, and… I, you know, you could kind of see the outline of the Milky Bay Galaxy, like, all of that, and It was so awesome, and since then.
23:25:21 I haven't experienced that, and it's certainly not like that here, you know? You can only see, like.
23:25:29 The major constellations, but even so. Just being able to sit down, lay down.
23:25:37 On the beach, look up, look at the sky, like, trace constellations, or… Look… look for where… a planet is, or whatever is going on.
23:25:49 In the cosmos around me. And just having a… a view of the entire sky alone has been… such a treat for me. Um, there's also so many birds here.
23:26:01 I've seen so many geese, and the geese were out on the water all night. I just got to see them, like.
23:26:07 Go in groups, crossing the water… near me, and just yapping all night long. Um… They feed on the grass by the beach, so it's pretty funny to see that.
23:26:21 Maybe I can, um, include a video of that or something in this, but… you know, maybe, maybe you're super… familiar with how this goes, but I'm just enchanted.
23:26:33 I went to, you know, there's… there's Herons here. A friend I met here told me that there's a whole family of great blue Herons nearby, so… They told me where they are, so I'm gonna go see if I can…
23:26:46 Check that out. I've, uh, I went to Massy Books, which is an indigenous-owned bookstore here, uh… Such a beautiful bookstore.
23:27:00 Lots of books. I had made an order ahead of time for some books that I wanted to pick up, so… I got to do that. I've been eating
23:27:09 So many good noodles, lots of good… ramen, uh… had, uh, you know, food at this vegan Vietnamese place today.
23:27:21 We live… or, you know, my friends are close to the… Davie St, or, like, it's, like, one of the, or maybe the, I don't know.
23:27:33 Very queer neighborhoods or streets. I went by a quote-unquote bookstore.
23:27:40 And… I'm gonna kind of… Make a small tangent here to say that there are a few of you that subscribe to this, um, newsletter slash podcast from your… corporate work emails, and for those of you, this might be a good reminder, or a good invitation, if you will.
23:28:00 To subscribe… Um, through a personal email, you know.
23:28:05 I would just love to be able to talk about personal things without worrying that I am… somehow messing up, or… Uh, yeah, I don't know, um… red-flagging your emails on your corporate servers..?
23:28:25 So, this will… whatever I say now will be in audio form.
23:28:31 And that will maybe link the transcripts, but… for the future, I would super appreciate if I, you know, if you did that, and… moved your subscription over.
23:28:44 To your… one of your personal emails. You know, you don't have to give me your real email or anything, it could be a relay.
23:28:50 I don't ask for your name, I don't track your… clicks or opens or anything, so… Anyway, uh… So yeah, like, I said that because I went to this quote-unquote bookstore, which is actually called Little Sisters.
23:29:09 Um, bookstore and Art Emporium. I kept air quoting bookstore, to my friends, and they were like, why are you air quoting it? And… Because it was actually a store that sells sex toys and… Pride paraphernalia, and… all sorts of kink things, and…
23:29:30 It was, you know, and they had books on sexuality, asexuality, erotica, like, all of it.
23:29:37 So, the bookstore part of it was more like. You know, like, two sides of a wall?
23:29:47 full of books.. And then it's a huge store full with the rest of it, so… I just had, like, you know, a lovely tone.
23:29:56 I'm, like, browsing the books, I found a couple poetry collections… to read, I… Uh, just going to walk around… you know, so I think, uh… the founder of this… bookstore, um, also.. is revered in the community, and…
23:30:18 There's a small plaza that's named after them. So again, I'm going by Ed's… saw the sights.
23:30:28 Got into some, you know, seen some, like. Seeing some stuff here… just… Like, I've met some really sweet people, all the people that I've talked to at stores that I've been to have been super sweet, and… I've just found myself easing up here in a way that I did not expect to.
23:30:51 Um, I started listening to this album by Postal Service. I'm gonna try to look up the name of the album, but… It's either give up or such great heights, which are both songs in this album, so you might have to…
23:31:07 Go check them out, but… I started listening to it, and… I was asking my partner, you know.
23:31:15 Are they from here or something? It just… You know, I just… went and started listening to these folks without, okay, the album is called Give Up, okay? Um… by the Postal Service, so… I started listening to them, and this particular album, and uh…
23:31:35 It was introduced to me by my partner, and I usually listen to it, you know, occasionally, but… somehow I came here, and my brain directly went to this album.
23:31:50 I then looked them up, and I found out that they were from Seattle, which is… You know, like, in… Like, the border between Seattle and Vancouver is super arbitrary, so… Coast Salish land territory still.
23:32:06 Um, and I thought, oh, all right, so… something about the West Coast, something about it, like.
23:32:13 Pulled me back to this album, a beautiful album. I've been listening to this album or other albums, just… Walking around on the street, sitting in parks.
23:32:26 Just, you know, I was at this park called Nelson Park, and somebody came by, a family with, like, a bubble net, and a bubble gun.
23:32:39 Like, the kid was just shooting stuff out of the bubble gun.
23:32:42 And then the… the caregivers, adults, they were… Um.
23:32:51 Just, like, blowing, or… using the bubble nets and the breeze to cast giant bubbles, beautiful bubbles.
23:33:05 They were just playing, and… a lot of kids would stop by.
23:33:12 Um, they… on their way, um, and then, you know, they were just… and it's on, so they would just start to go and book the bubble And so, like, other families started to kind of stop by and engage with this kind of…
23:33:29 Performance, if you will, and I… felt inspired to… open up my own presence.
23:33:39 In a more… in a performative way, but I don't mean that as a… you know, I'm trying to present a facade, but more of a… I am just… going to move my body, or dance, or things that I won't normally do.
23:33:58 Um, because… one, I feel like I can.
23:34:03 And two… I feel like I somehow came here at this… perfect moment for me.
23:34:11 Where I have started to feel as though I can just take up space.
23:34:17 That it's all, you know. For my own sake, that my movements, or my body, or whatever is happening.
23:34:26 In my immediate… you know, physical space is about me and what I want.
23:34:34 Nobody cares, as I said last time, nobody cares. And… it's not just… that I can look at other people
23:34:45 Living their life, and feel admiration for that, but I can also just Be, and that's… There is a performance in that, in that I love dancing, and I love… moving my body, or stretching, and… I feel sometimes most inclined to do that when I'm outside, so…
23:35:05 Why not? Why not? Why not? When the waves are crashing, listen to some postal service and dance your way.
23:35:13 Into the park. Speaking of, it is Pride Month, so being on Davie Street in this month has been… really cool, I've seen a lot of gays, uh… It's, you know, I'm not really a person that goes to…dance clubs, or anything that's super busy, you know, I'm the person that's
23:35:38 Going to wind up reading a book in the corner.
23:35:43 Um, or having a one-on-one conversation outside, or something like that, but… Occasionally, I can enjoy those things, but I particularly enjoy being ain't just able to… you know, breathe the same air, or come in close contact with
23:36:00 The people who are just alive and living. Especially coming here in… This month, as the weather warms up.
23:36:12 It's been a very… you know, cool experience to see how I've… The entire city has come.
23:36:22 Into… And everyone comes to hang by the beach.
23:36:25 Things are open really late at night. There's, like, 24-hour coffee shops here.
23:36:31 Its very nice. I know that it's also, you know, really expensive, and there's obviously lots of things going on in the city, but…
23:36:46 For me where I am, and…
23:36:50 You know, I'll… all I wanted was to see my friends.
23:36:55 And when I had looked at their place. Through the map, I thought… Wow, that looks so beautiful, you know, how… I wonder how it'll be, and then I'm here, and… it's… it's… it's beyond something that I could have… could have expected.
23:37:13 So, yeah… I'm doing good here, I'm doing good here.
23:37:23 I feel like I'm another person, almost, like I am meeting a version of myself.
23:37:30 That feels long lost, and I am getting again. There are crows here, which has been another aspect to it.
23:37:40 There are crows in Chennai were, you know, I spent the bulk of my… childhood, um… Uh, that's somewhat inaccurate, but, you know, in Tamilnadu, where I spent the bulk of my childhood, for sure, um… But… I don't see crows as much in…
23:38:02 To Toronto, Tkoronto, where I live, like… Back here, there's crows, they're huger than the crows in Tamilnadu, but… they are here, and I see them, and in Tamar culture, crows are our ancestors.
23:38:14 Um, and so… I just… I just feel like I'm home.
23:38:25 You know, being… a person that has moved around a lot.
23:38:30 And I'm sure a lot of folks that are immigrants, or refugees, or… people that were brought over… Um, and descended from folks that… you know, were brought over against their will.
23:38:49 To Turtle Island, North America. Or wherever it is that you are, experience this feeling of not belonging
23:39:05 Entirely, because your home is elsewhere. But the new place also changes you in such a way that you don't fully belong.
23:39:13 Where you came from either. So… so… you are in this kind of liminal… place of there being no place, but also every place.
23:39:29 I… I feel that, for sure, and I know that there will be parts of me that are… you know, where I'm living now, or parts of me that… are attached to or feel alive.
23:39:42 When I go back to Chennai, or I go back to Tamilnadu, or I go back, you know, all of it…
23:39:51 I didn't know that there would be a place that I would go to where I would feel like I could even claim that I felt… a sense of home, not because I have a home here, or I have tons of friends here,
23:40:06 Or anything like that, nothing external to me, but just, I feel good here.
23:40:12 I am appreciating that. So, yeah, I guess… I don't know how long I've been talking to y'all, but… I'm gonna… uh… start to wrap up here… I… just… If there's something that has really come home
23:40:43 For me, this week… It is so much I get.
23:40:48 Take the space to be myself. To, you know… not even have to, you know, explicitly set boundaries or name my needs, or any of these things.
23:40:59 Which are important, but… This week has been an exercise in just being, in just… going out when I want, doing the thing when I want.
23:41:13 Writing things down, not writing things down, reading what I want, eating what I want.
23:41:19 Waking up when I want… And not really… trying to explain myself, or… you know, figure out what my community is going to be, or… make friends, or… try any of these… things that I normally would do if I'm trying to
23:41:39 Like, you know, go to a new place, find a home.
23:41:42 And I have done all of those things to some extent. Like, I am gonna meet friends here, I am gonna… you know, go places, say I'm gonna hang out with my friends, all of it, but… Most importantly.
23:41:53 I have felt… that… the sense of… fully realizing what it feels like to just be myself.
23:42:05 Unapologetically. And… whether that's just stopping in the middle of the road to listen to a bird, or… seeing how, you know.
23:42:18 My friends might do the same, too. Yeah, just…
23:42:29 Last week, I had talked about how I was… I was trying to show up here in… this kind of more authentic, more present way.
23:42:40 And this week has felt like… living that in my whole life… And having… the opportunity and the and the sense of… deep connection.
23:42:57 To the land here, to the ocean here, the water here.
23:43:03 The moss on the trees, and… the birds… the mountains.
23:43:16 And the gays! It's pride at… Whether it's Pride or not, the gays are.
23:43:24 So… Happy Pride, my friends.
23:43:28 Whatever it's feeling like for you .. this month.
23:43:37 That, yeah, I hope I'll talk to you some time next week.
23:43:41 Maybe it will be less gushing about Vancouver, and… It's more about… Whatever unfolds this week, alright, take care, talk to you soon!