It’s 7am on a Wednesday morning, I’m lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling through a stream of tears, listening to my Dad on the other end of the phone line: “Have you been eating? Do you feel dizzy? Has it been trouble getting to sleep, or getting to sleep then waking up?” I haven’t slept in 3 days. I’m a total mess: tired and stressed and scared and homesick. I can’t go in to work… but if I don’t, then I’ll be the shitey intern who did three days of work and then had to pull a sickie for the rest of the week. Dad says it sounds like stress. I try to agree with him but it comes out as more of a “blub” noise.
Three days since I've had a night of sleep. Sleeplessness hits me hard, really hard. I get headaches, a temperature, shakiness, nausea… flu-like symptoms. Lying down in bed is seeming like a test, let alone going into work and sitting in front of a computer for several hours. I give them an e-mail, and then lie back down, reeling over my complete incapacity to function like a normal human being.
So why am I stressed? On Skype to both my parents later in the day, they point out to me that I’ve just started a new job, have only been in the city for a little over two weeks, still being new to my flat, and new to Toronto, and finding friends and, and, and… Oh yeah, I think. I try to explain to them that it feels like I’ve been in here in Toronto for three months rather than three weeks, so a part of me is expecting to be a lot more settled than I actually am. My mind is playing tricks on me. Mum and Dad tell me to go and try to do a walk around the block, as it will help me sleep at night. I sob even more and tell them not to hang up on me. Then Dad says, “get a tattoo! Go get a tattoo! Get one to remind yourself of why you’re here in Toronto, to cheer yourself up and stop stressing!” At that point, Mum tries to muffle Dad with her hand over his mouth, “yeah, go get a tattoo, Olivia!” she says, sarcastically. “Even better - every time you feel this sad, you have to go get a tattoo!” she says, with the kind of tone which implies the following phrase, THEN we’ll see what a good idea this is, eh? I start to laugh.
So that was me, three days ago. Let’s rewind even further to the weekend before. *blilililililizp! rewind noise* I was at an open mic by myself, again. It was the Supermarket bar, which is where “YOU MAKE ME COME ALIIIIVE! BAYBEH!” happened. Unfortunately (…or fortunately?), The Emotional Rollercoaster weren’t featuring this week. I was talking to my buddy Shingo, the Japanese guy that I had bumped into at every open mic I’d been to so far. I was telling Shingo that I was from Scotland when his face lit up. “Scotland!? Do you know the city… eh… the big city… ah! Glasgow! Do you know Glasgow!?” Yes, I knew Glasgow. Shingo was so, so passionate about Glasgow. Kind of in the same way I am about Toronto, I guess. “There looks like there is so much art and culture and music over there! What is it like?” I pictured Shingo in the middle of Argyll Street, his eager face in the midst of rough Glaswegian types. How could someone see Glasgow as such a wonderland? I shrugged my shoulders. Each to their own, I reckoned.
I waited for my turn to play, a gaggle of guys coming up on stage just before my go. A curly mop of hair took to the microphone: “Hey, my name is Sam, this is my band… um, is there a drummer here who could join us?” From the corner of my right eye I saw someone jump up and jog up to the stage, sitting down behind the house kit. He picked up the sticks and, with a flick of his head, tossed a glorious mess of dark waves back off of his face. Holy freakin’ moly, I said to myself as I gazed upon this visage, he is gorgeous. He smiled, and the flash of his pearly teeth nearly blinded me. His eyes were so bright and his jaw was so straight, so… beautiful. The band played, and they were terrible. But he was perfect. I stared into his dreamy drummer face the whole set. And did he catch my eye? Was he looking over at me? Did he do it on purpose? Oh my god. Oh my god! Maybe he wasn’t looking at me. Come on, Olivia. Get it togetherrrrr. You’re up next and you’ve got to be AMAZING.
After Sam and his band finally cleared the stage, I hopped up and began to play Compass. Drummer Man was standing at the back of the room, waiting for his friends to go outside and have a smoke. He stood, silhouetted by the light of the restaurant, his perfect wavy hair outlined with the shadow. The lights were bright in my eyes. I tried to make eye contact every now and then, but because he was just a shadow I couldn’t quite figure out where his eyes were. Am I just looking at his nose? This is awkward. Keep playing, Olivia. I knew I was on dangerous territory anyway - I have a history of trying to make eye contact with cute boys while playing the guitar and completely forgetting my words and chords. Just before I finished my first song, his friends joined him and they went outside. I played With You next, and I killed it. I wished that Drummer Man had been there to see it. Then he wouldn’t have walked out on me. *shakes fist*
I had work the next day, so after I played, I packed up my things and said goodbye to Shingo. I tried to plan in my head what I was going to do when I went outside and saw Drummer Man. A subtle flirt as ever, I decided the best plan of action would be to go outside, and stop, just in front of the smoking area to put on my gloves. He would recognise me and be stunned by my beauty, and feel compelled to introduce himself. So I went outside. I could sense him standing there, but was he watching me? Make eye contact, DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT! I struggled with myself while putting on my gloves with a look of gorgeous concentration. I knew he was standing there. Don't look at him! LOOK AT HIM! I yelled internally. But I didn’t look at him. I walked away.
I was kicking myself as I stood on College Street, waiting for a taxi. When I got picked up I shoved my guitar in the backseat and then hopped in, to be greeted by my cabby. “How are you? How was your night?” he enquired. I told him I’d just been at an open mic. “OH! You play guitar?” …That’s why I’ve got one. “I am a singer myself,” he said. “Back home, in Egypt, I have thirty million fans. Thirty million fans!” Cabby told me that back in Egypt, musicians earn very little money, and that no-one really cares about them until they die. “Then everyone cries!” he exclaimed, “and they all say, ‘I knew him! I knew him so well!’” He then told me about his adventures recording music in Canada, he told me he knew a group of Jamaican people who could do me a good recording deal. “Where do you work? I must see you again,” he asked me. I tried to be as vague as possible. “I will come see you! I will see you again!” he said, as I exited the taxi.
Once in the door, I thought about Drummer Man, and his chiseled jawline. I have to see him again, I have to find him, I thought. As I flipped open my laptop and wandered through Facebook, I could faintly remember his name as he was introduced on stage earlier that night. It was an unusual name. I typed it in to my search box on Facebook, and clicked “Toronto.” …And there he was. Yes, yes that was definitely him. This is weird, I thought. That was way too easy. I scrolled down his page a bit, and saw a post he'd made about looking for a flatmate, mentioning the junction that his apartment sat on. That’s literally one block away from me. That’s right next to my local No Frills. Funny, that Drummer Man, who I saw in Supermarket Bar, lived near my actual supermarket.
My head started spinning with scenarios of going to the supermarket and bumping into him, us both reaching for the same avocado and accidentally touching hands, looking up, and - oh! You! I can’t believe it! Will you accompany me down the aisle? Aisle 7, that is. I need to pick up some detergent. I started to form lyrics and a little tune in my head. And thus, Supermarket Man was born:
The Supermarket Man (as Drummer Man shall henceforth be known) situation is still murky. Where will I see him again? At the supermarket? Or Supermarket, the bar? I patiently await the moment I shall see his face again, and hopefully this time I won’t decide that donning a pair of gloves is my best plan of attack.
So, let’s get ourselves up to speed. That was last Sunday. Now, after a hellish week of fear and stress and parental reassurance via Skype, I’m feeling more like myself. I actually slept last night. I’m sitting in a cafe. I seem to be… ok. Yesterday, I met Mr. Swipey in a record store to get out of the house for a couple of hours, and to actually be around another human being. It was a tiny place in Kensington, and when I turned up, he was methodically going through a small pile of vinyl: listening to elements of each record, placing them into categories to decide which ones to keep and to put back. I paced the small shop, occasionally flicking through Blues and Jazz records, or looking at the extensive collection of Japanese art on the walls. Sometimes Mr. Swipey would place the headphones over my head so I could hear what he was listening to. After what felt like hours of decision-making, Swipey eventually settled on several records. We chatted to the store’s proprietor, and asked him why he had so much Oriental art for sale, in addition to vinyl. This sparked a huge discussion about Japan - the store owner pointed us to two framed photographs on the wall, one of him on his wedding day in Osaka, and another one with a little girl, both scenes underneath cherry blossoms.
The conversation reminded me of my good friend, Hannah. She would know all about stress and disorientation, having moved to Japan several months ago. I sent her a message, explaining the week I’d had and asking for advice. “If it’s any consolation, you’re right on time,” she replied. That made me feel a little bit better, a little bit more normal. We sat down and Skyped each other this morning for three hours, catching up for the first time since before I’d moved abroad. I told her about how I missed hugging people, and she burst out laughing, because she knew exactly what I meant. She told me the advice her mother had given her when she had reached this block - The Second Wave, I thought, as I recalled some advice my uncle had given me about homesickness before I’d left. Hannah’s mother had essentially said, CALM DOWN, which, to be honest, was exactly what my own mum had been saying to me. “Don’t try and do everything all at once. Give yourself a break.” Apparently I had been trying to do a million things at once this week, and now it was time to just sit back and let the days happen. Go to work, make dinner, go for a walk, maybe see some friends, but most of all, just chill out and take your foot off the pedal. Hannah and I agreed, we are very similar. We both are prone to dwelling on our Life 'sPurpose and what we are doing or not doing to achieve it. What can I do next? What should I be doing? What do I need to do to get where I want to be? We ruminate over these questions until we work ourselves into a state. When I looked at her this morning, and she told me what she'd been up to, I felt more assurance in what I was doing. She showed me a magic card trick, and taught me some Japanese. Magi de! Sugoi yo! Onegaishimasu!
So… I know I always try to end these blog posts with some kind of uplifting statement, some kind of reassurance, partly for the reader, but mostly for me, to convince myself that I’m in the right place, on the right track. As my friend Patrick said, after reading one of my more inspirational entries: '...and let sugar plum fairies and rainbows fly from my bottom and propel me into the bright and blinding beyond.' ...Yeah, I have a habit for being ridiculously optimistic. But that’s ok, because it’s often levelled out by my cripplingly-destructive mind, which does a great deal of worrying most of the time. So I finish this entry with an “it’s ok, I’m ok, it’s all going to be ok” for myself, but also this: this whole deal, this moving abroad, getting a flat, scoring a new job, trying to find friends (so I can count the people I know here and not be able to do so just using my ten fingers), this whole deal... it's worth it, but it is really, really, really difficult.
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