It has been a while since I wrote about these characters.
I am told that I am a cathartic writer, and this point does not ring more true than in this story. Be gentle, haha!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Transposed
Joshua Albers – 2011-09-03
This is not the place I grew up in.
England is different from home in a lot of ways, many ways really, but not so much as to be strange; at least not yet. People have been telling me that they are here for me when the culture shock sets in. The by-product of having never really been anywhere different for any length of time is that you aren’t really sure what culture shock is. Truth told, I like to think that a heavy European upbringing helps to make a transfer to a place like England all the easier, but I haven’t been here long enough to really say that with any certainty.
I still haven’t gotten over the fact that I am here to begin with. Everywhere I go I walk around like I am caught up in some place between fiction and reality, it is surreal. I will be walking down the street out front of my new home and it seems normal enough, I mean the architecture is different sure, but what really nails home the idea that I am not in Canada anymore is when you see potholes in the road, but they aren’t really potholes because you can see the old cobblestone streets underneath. There is a history underneath the pavement that you just don’t get back home. Still though, none of this really has fazed me yet. Get back to me in a month or mores time and I might tell you something very different. Right now though, I am just enjoying where I am. I go to bars, I go to diners for breakfast, I go to the mall or I just walk around and try to make this place a part of my everyday life. Take breakfast for instance. I can assure you that the breakfast you can get at just about any cafĂ© here is not the kind of breakfast you will find back home. Back home you can get several kinds of things for breakfast, but here you can only seem to get a varying set of combinations of the same dish, the fullest of which involves black pudding, two sausages, two pieces of bacon, an egg, a fried tomato, toast, and beans.
Black pudding by the way is better known as blood pudding and is rarely ever served back home, and by rarely I mean never. Though it is rarely served, you will no doubt recognize the flavour once you have had it but you will never be able to fully place it. In short, it isn’t as scary as it seems.
I think the only thing that is really getting to me is the idea that I am sort of here in this place alone. That is the one thing that constantly reminds me I am in some new and different place. My friends and my family are back home. It isn’t that I am unable to make friends here, I have met awesome people, and it is just that the friend-making thing is different here. I am a stranger to this place who is sort of jumping into people’s lives after they have made friends and developed relationship over the course of years. I feel out of place, like a blip on a radar. Maybe this is what everyone who has ever been new to my home country has felt like; in which case I hope I was inviting towards them and available to them. The whole thing is made all the more odd feeling when the friends I have back home rarely talk to me through e-mail. I both enjoy this and resent it at the same time. On the one hand I am excited to be in a new place and meeting new people and going new places; on the other I feel left behind in a way. The odd message here and there is greatly received and yet when I become engaged too much I get annoyed and want to be left alone. Perhaps I am enduring the result of my own fickleness.
The other day I went to a pub that has sort of become my new local watering hole. My brother would give me a hard time calling a pub a local pub, stating that every pub is a local pub. If he knew how many there were in my vicinity though, he might understand why I call it my local watering hole. Anyway, I was in a local pub called The Whitworth, a quiet place where you can grab a beer and play darts, or watch the latest match or just be left alone to think. It is the less popular choice compared to the modern looking Ford Maddox Brown, which serves various kinds of steaks and is more of a trendy place to go. It was inside the old walls of The Whitworth that I met the unfamiliar faces of a couple long time friends as I had sat down at a table to myself and had taken a sip from a pint of my San Miguel, a bit more expensive but well worth it. An old man sat down at my table with a pint of bitter and a familiar twinkle in his eye. The old man had a familiar feel about him, like I had seen him someplace before but I couldn’t place him. He sat across from me wearing a thick, knitted brown sweater, unbuttoned, over a blue, nearly grey, shirt. His hair was thick and windblown and white and his face was clean-shaven. To tell you the truth, he reminded me a little bit of JRR Tolkien, or at least the picture of him I used to see on the back of The Hobbit.
“How are you liking it here across the pond?” He asked me.
The question had thrown me off guard a little bit. How could this man know I wasn’t from England? I hadn’t spoken except to the bartender when I ordered my drink. I wondered if I really stood out that much but answered him none the less.
“Feels a bit like a dream if I am being honest.”
He had taken a sip from his pint and smacked his lips, “Blessings do tend to feel that way.”
“Do I know you?” I asked, the curiosity and that familiar feeling had finally gotten the best of me.
“You’ve changed over the years Josh, but you are no less odd. I to change as things progress, your view of the world has changed and I with it I suppose.” The old man smiled a smile that I could all of a sudden place again.
“Father Time, what are you doing here?”
He laughed a little bit, he was no doubt proud of himself and his wit, “You can always find me in a pub.”
You can always find Time in a pub. I suppose that is a true statement. He put his drink down on the tabletop and pointed behind me.
“You remember Fall?”
I had looked in the direction that Time pointed in and the person I saw was not the Fall that I had always remembered. Though her clothes still very much pointed at her season; she was dressed in a long P Coat that went down to her knees, brown in colour with faint rusty red patterns sown into it. Around her neck was a scarf, brown and gold and she was wearing brown stockings and brown suede buckled riding boots. Her wardrobe seemed to reflect the city I was in now and her physical appearance had changed as well. Her hair was no longer red, but was thick and golden brown, her skin was olive coloured but her golden eyes remained the same.
“You have changed a lot since I last saw you at the park back home.” I said to her.
“You don’t look much like the annoyed 22 year old I met that day either.” She sat down next to Time with a glass of cider and a smile.
“What brings you to England?” At the time it seemed a good enough question, though now it just seems silly, a reach for conversation.
“You do.” She said, still smiling. She and Time were not going to make this easy.
Moments passed between the three of us where nothing was said; there was just the sound of glasses being placed as they went up and down from mouths and back down to the tables. It felt awkward, it was like meeting new people again, and a shyness set in that I hadn’t felt in some time. Perhaps it was a good thing though, it was another growing opportunity, another chance to further step two feet out of my comfort zone, even if it was with familiar people. Fall had changed a lot, she wasn’t as shy as the first time I met her, in fact she had grown into a person I least expected her to become. She was serious, but loving; she was reserved, but open. She seemed to fit a stereotype I have yet to fully discover. No, I didn’t glean these conclusions off of a few seconds of conversation. We did talk much longer, the three of us; it just seems so distant now. We talked about what we had been up to in the last four years and we talked about all the things that had changed. It is amazing the kind of growth you can find in what is really a short amount of time. I have a theory that life works in two-year periods of idiocy.
“Every two years you look back and discover what an idiot you were for thinking that you had it all figured out, only to discover the same thing in another two years.” I laughed a little bit as I said it. It was just my way of saying that I understood that I will believe to have it all figured out but I may never truly. It was my way of saying that I understood I still had growing to do.
Fall looked at me with an eyebrow raised and her lips pursed in a smile, “Sounds like you have it all figured out.” Her voice was very distinct, it sounded as though she carefully considered every word she said in a matter of moments.
“No Fall, what I am saying is that I don’t.” I had smiled as I said it.
“You recognize that much.” Time had pointed out to me. “You still seem to find loneliness all to easily and have yet to discover you are never truly alone.”
Part of me in that moment wanted to give a sarcastic remark about talking with figments of my imagination but I bit my tongue. The truth is I knew what Time was talking about. He had been referring to God. And God continues to try and tell me that same message every time I start to feel like just a spec travelling through a place.
“Put Him in front of you Josh and you will be taken to amazing places. Another Joshua used to do just that. You never know what you are going to find, but you can trust it is Him taking you there. Stop with all the self pity and just go for it!”
This wasn’t the first time I had heard those words before. I had experienced a great deal of encouragement a couple times with those very same words and I continue to be encouraged by them now. Time gave me another one of those familiar smiles over his pint glass and almost spoke into his cup.
“Besides, Fall is here. Maybe the two of you can go to Arndale or take a walk around Platt. She still fancies you, you know.”
“Dad!” Fall blushed, that all to recognizable shyness setting in once more. Perhaps we don’t change as quickly as we think we do! “You are constantly meddling about!”
“I’m Time…I meddle, it’s what I do.” He got up and left the table, I don’t know where he went, probably to play darts, but he had left Fall and I alone to catch up.
To give a bit of history, I suppose. Back home I had been a friend with the Ravens who brought the seasons. It had all began when I met Winter on a train leaving the downtown area. Winter had always been my favourite of the seasons, I had always had a rocky relationship with Summer and Spring slept most of the year. Fall had always had a special place in my heart though. She was never around that long back home, but when she was, she brought with her magnificent colours and days that were bright and sunny but with a wind just cold enough to need a jumper. Fall brought with her inspiration and I had always felt that she was my muse. She had admitted that knowing that she inspired me made her shy towards me.
“So how about it? Would you want to go for a walk some place?” I asked.
“Why not.” She replied.
This is not the same place I grew up in.
Change is a good thing.
I am told that I am a cathartic writer, and this point does not ring more true than in this story. Be gentle, haha!
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Transposed
Joshua Albers – 2011-09-03
This is not the place I grew up in.
England is different from home in a lot of ways, many ways really, but not so much as to be strange; at least not yet. People have been telling me that they are here for me when the culture shock sets in. The by-product of having never really been anywhere different for any length of time is that you aren’t really sure what culture shock is. Truth told, I like to think that a heavy European upbringing helps to make a transfer to a place like England all the easier, but I haven’t been here long enough to really say that with any certainty.
I still haven’t gotten over the fact that I am here to begin with. Everywhere I go I walk around like I am caught up in some place between fiction and reality, it is surreal. I will be walking down the street out front of my new home and it seems normal enough, I mean the architecture is different sure, but what really nails home the idea that I am not in Canada anymore is when you see potholes in the road, but they aren’t really potholes because you can see the old cobblestone streets underneath. There is a history underneath the pavement that you just don’t get back home. Still though, none of this really has fazed me yet. Get back to me in a month or mores time and I might tell you something very different. Right now though, I am just enjoying where I am. I go to bars, I go to diners for breakfast, I go to the mall or I just walk around and try to make this place a part of my everyday life. Take breakfast for instance. I can assure you that the breakfast you can get at just about any cafĂ© here is not the kind of breakfast you will find back home. Back home you can get several kinds of things for breakfast, but here you can only seem to get a varying set of combinations of the same dish, the fullest of which involves black pudding, two sausages, two pieces of bacon, an egg, a fried tomato, toast, and beans.
Black pudding by the way is better known as blood pudding and is rarely ever served back home, and by rarely I mean never. Though it is rarely served, you will no doubt recognize the flavour once you have had it but you will never be able to fully place it. In short, it isn’t as scary as it seems.
I think the only thing that is really getting to me is the idea that I am sort of here in this place alone. That is the one thing that constantly reminds me I am in some new and different place. My friends and my family are back home. It isn’t that I am unable to make friends here, I have met awesome people, and it is just that the friend-making thing is different here. I am a stranger to this place who is sort of jumping into people’s lives after they have made friends and developed relationship over the course of years. I feel out of place, like a blip on a radar. Maybe this is what everyone who has ever been new to my home country has felt like; in which case I hope I was inviting towards them and available to them. The whole thing is made all the more odd feeling when the friends I have back home rarely talk to me through e-mail. I both enjoy this and resent it at the same time. On the one hand I am excited to be in a new place and meeting new people and going new places; on the other I feel left behind in a way. The odd message here and there is greatly received and yet when I become engaged too much I get annoyed and want to be left alone. Perhaps I am enduring the result of my own fickleness.
The other day I went to a pub that has sort of become my new local watering hole. My brother would give me a hard time calling a pub a local pub, stating that every pub is a local pub. If he knew how many there were in my vicinity though, he might understand why I call it my local watering hole. Anyway, I was in a local pub called The Whitworth, a quiet place where you can grab a beer and play darts, or watch the latest match or just be left alone to think. It is the less popular choice compared to the modern looking Ford Maddox Brown, which serves various kinds of steaks and is more of a trendy place to go. It was inside the old walls of The Whitworth that I met the unfamiliar faces of a couple long time friends as I had sat down at a table to myself and had taken a sip from a pint of my San Miguel, a bit more expensive but well worth it. An old man sat down at my table with a pint of bitter and a familiar twinkle in his eye. The old man had a familiar feel about him, like I had seen him someplace before but I couldn’t place him. He sat across from me wearing a thick, knitted brown sweater, unbuttoned, over a blue, nearly grey, shirt. His hair was thick and windblown and white and his face was clean-shaven. To tell you the truth, he reminded me a little bit of JRR Tolkien, or at least the picture of him I used to see on the back of The Hobbit.
“How are you liking it here across the pond?” He asked me.
The question had thrown me off guard a little bit. How could this man know I wasn’t from England? I hadn’t spoken except to the bartender when I ordered my drink. I wondered if I really stood out that much but answered him none the less.
“Feels a bit like a dream if I am being honest.”
He had taken a sip from his pint and smacked his lips, “Blessings do tend to feel that way.”
“Do I know you?” I asked, the curiosity and that familiar feeling had finally gotten the best of me.
“You’ve changed over the years Josh, but you are no less odd. I to change as things progress, your view of the world has changed and I with it I suppose.” The old man smiled a smile that I could all of a sudden place again.
“Father Time, what are you doing here?”
He laughed a little bit, he was no doubt proud of himself and his wit, “You can always find me in a pub.”
You can always find Time in a pub. I suppose that is a true statement. He put his drink down on the tabletop and pointed behind me.
“You remember Fall?”
I had looked in the direction that Time pointed in and the person I saw was not the Fall that I had always remembered. Though her clothes still very much pointed at her season; she was dressed in a long P Coat that went down to her knees, brown in colour with faint rusty red patterns sown into it. Around her neck was a scarf, brown and gold and she was wearing brown stockings and brown suede buckled riding boots. Her wardrobe seemed to reflect the city I was in now and her physical appearance had changed as well. Her hair was no longer red, but was thick and golden brown, her skin was olive coloured but her golden eyes remained the same.
“You have changed a lot since I last saw you at the park back home.” I said to her.
“You don’t look much like the annoyed 22 year old I met that day either.” She sat down next to Time with a glass of cider and a smile.
“What brings you to England?” At the time it seemed a good enough question, though now it just seems silly, a reach for conversation.
“You do.” She said, still smiling. She and Time were not going to make this easy.
Moments passed between the three of us where nothing was said; there was just the sound of glasses being placed as they went up and down from mouths and back down to the tables. It felt awkward, it was like meeting new people again, and a shyness set in that I hadn’t felt in some time. Perhaps it was a good thing though, it was another growing opportunity, another chance to further step two feet out of my comfort zone, even if it was with familiar people. Fall had changed a lot, she wasn’t as shy as the first time I met her, in fact she had grown into a person I least expected her to become. She was serious, but loving; she was reserved, but open. She seemed to fit a stereotype I have yet to fully discover. No, I didn’t glean these conclusions off of a few seconds of conversation. We did talk much longer, the three of us; it just seems so distant now. We talked about what we had been up to in the last four years and we talked about all the things that had changed. It is amazing the kind of growth you can find in what is really a short amount of time. I have a theory that life works in two-year periods of idiocy.
“Every two years you look back and discover what an idiot you were for thinking that you had it all figured out, only to discover the same thing in another two years.” I laughed a little bit as I said it. It was just my way of saying that I understood that I will believe to have it all figured out but I may never truly. It was my way of saying that I understood I still had growing to do.
Fall looked at me with an eyebrow raised and her lips pursed in a smile, “Sounds like you have it all figured out.” Her voice was very distinct, it sounded as though she carefully considered every word she said in a matter of moments.
“No Fall, what I am saying is that I don’t.” I had smiled as I said it.
“You recognize that much.” Time had pointed out to me. “You still seem to find loneliness all to easily and have yet to discover you are never truly alone.”
Part of me in that moment wanted to give a sarcastic remark about talking with figments of my imagination but I bit my tongue. The truth is I knew what Time was talking about. He had been referring to God. And God continues to try and tell me that same message every time I start to feel like just a spec travelling through a place.
“Put Him in front of you Josh and you will be taken to amazing places. Another Joshua used to do just that. You never know what you are going to find, but you can trust it is Him taking you there. Stop with all the self pity and just go for it!”
This wasn’t the first time I had heard those words before. I had experienced a great deal of encouragement a couple times with those very same words and I continue to be encouraged by them now. Time gave me another one of those familiar smiles over his pint glass and almost spoke into his cup.
“Besides, Fall is here. Maybe the two of you can go to Arndale or take a walk around Platt. She still fancies you, you know.”
“Dad!” Fall blushed, that all to recognizable shyness setting in once more. Perhaps we don’t change as quickly as we think we do! “You are constantly meddling about!”
“I’m Time…I meddle, it’s what I do.” He got up and left the table, I don’t know where he went, probably to play darts, but he had left Fall and I alone to catch up.
To give a bit of history, I suppose. Back home I had been a friend with the Ravens who brought the seasons. It had all began when I met Winter on a train leaving the downtown area. Winter had always been my favourite of the seasons, I had always had a rocky relationship with Summer and Spring slept most of the year. Fall had always had a special place in my heart though. She was never around that long back home, but when she was, she brought with her magnificent colours and days that were bright and sunny but with a wind just cold enough to need a jumper. Fall brought with her inspiration and I had always felt that she was my muse. She had admitted that knowing that she inspired me made her shy towards me.
“So how about it? Would you want to go for a walk some place?” I asked.
“Why not.” She replied.
This is not the same place I grew up in.
Change is a good thing.
