Chrisa.
It always felt funny to write your name, like something was missing…like I had hit the backspace key by mistake, or rushed through a letter in my loopy cursive, sloppily melding several characters into one. Even saying it was strange, though I don’t know whether it seemed to drag on a syllable too long or clip off a few too short. Chris-a. Chrisa.
We were walking by the ROM as they were redesigning; you were describing its future contours. You scribbled in the air with your pinky, saying names I had never heard before in a manner that suggested that I had heard them before. “Chrisa,” I said, “I don’t need a tour…,” but you seemed unable to stop being a guide; you slung your bag around your back as you slithered through the crowd, anticipating and darting through each available bit of space, listing landmarks both historical and personal. Your clothes were so basic and your hair so wind-flattened that you almost went invisible against the distracting rush.
I remember meeting you a year or two earlier, your handful of cassettes with hand-drawn covers, your fingers stained with glitter and paint. You offered your water, a patch cable, a drawing and a place to stay, all in such rapid succession that I barely knew what I was saying yes to. No matter who joined the conversation, you led. The most random assortment of people greeted you by name: gutter punks, little kids, mid-level Canadian pop stars. They all said your name and smiled.
Now, already, you seemed so much older than the day I met you; already an exhaustion had seeped into your understanding of the world. Happiness wasn’t something to strive for, more something to be acknowledged as temporary relief from the darker, natural state of things. The skies darkened, the Earth iced over, friends in Burlington died. Our cab crashed into the side of a truck; you barely took your chin from your palm as you unbuckled and slid out. You brushed off sexual assaults and robberies, your parents’ divorce, your broken thumb, all with the same weariness. It happened, I can deal with it, end of fucking story.
And your dead-eyed diagnoses and predictions were always so hard to refute because you always turned out to be right. I have the first letter I ever got from you, and it shows you had it figured even then; you traced my future just as effortlessly in the sky as any developing architecture, point A goes to point B, so on. You walked me right through it, with the same distracted precision: This will happen to you. It’ll be okay, then all of a sudden it won’t be okay. The likelyhood is, I won’t be around anymore by then. And it’s true, you’re not here, through every fault of my own.
I write this all down, and it feels like I’m missing something. Like we missed something. Or maybe…I just miss you. I miss walking with purpose in the crisp city air, waiting for those little bits of humour to creep into your voice, those little lights to dance across your eyes, even if only for a moment. Those times with you, those couple times a year, they were great; they were more important to me than I could have ever imagined at the time.
Anyway. I heard this song today and thought of you. I pictured you singing along, doing an occassional fist pump, an occassional off-beat tap on the edge of the stage. A big, uncomplicated smile at the chorus.
I hope that still happens for you. I hope whatever does that for you, whatever brings you that joy now…I hope it happens a whole hell of a lot.
