Beaubrent.com - Night Letters

A moment of silence, please, for the good people in my life that I didn't have the fucking common sense to hold onto.

I was talking to an old friend of mine yesterday on Skype (old as in way back, not greying), and after about two hours of a really amazing conversation, I was wondering how we ever grew apart. He's an amazing guy, Joshua. His way of looking at the world and mine are very similar and we've been through so much of the same thing.

When you're twenty, you don't think much of holding onto people because they come and go with such regularity. You never stop to ask yourself whether they are really worthing holding onto, whether they add anything to your life. But when you are thirty -- if you've had the good sense to shed yourself of the dead weight of useless people who do more harm than good -- you are left wondering how to surround yourself with better people.

Maybe some of that is really just trying to get back those really amazing people that you knew and wish you could continue to know, to begin to build those really lasting bonds that keep people together across time and distances.

Or, maybe, the best friendships are like the best relationships and you only get one shot and you've just got to learn to be a better person the next time around.

It was like looking at the sun's reflection on the water. I was in a daze admiring all the beauty. Since coming to Europe, I hadn't seen such beauty and on this particularly sunny day, all the beauty of the world was right in front of me in a ladybug. A beautiful, unexpected ladybug that had just fallen into my path.

As far as sunny days go lately, they have been few and far between. More and more these days, the sun shines through the clouds and the optimist and artist and musician inside me are again woken up, ready to smile and create and play. Through all the darkness of the months past, it's such a relief to see a bit of sun again.

The gentle feel of the sun on my skin, the smell of a new year in a new place, and the steady tempo of a heart beat playing the tempo of a very hot summer well on it's way.

With the seasons, the frozen glaciers are starting to drip slowly, warping and melting in the sun. New buds are starting to show, the huge blue sky is peeking through, and my heart is starting to sing that familiar spring song.

At 3:00 AM, the refrigerator motor started humming again, and then sort of knocking, and finally sputtering. When I can't sleep, sometimes I'll just lie there and imagine a song that matches exactly the tempo of the sounds coming out of the refrigerator motor.

I haven't slept well in days. I've got a lot on my mind and more on my heart. The changes of the last year are settling in and I'm searching for a new routine to put my body back into. As soon as I can find that daily routine again, I'm sure I'll sleep like a baby again.

For the time being, the tempo keeps me company. The rythm of the great battle of philosophy and emotion in my head plays out in the dark silence of the middle of the night and when sleep finally comes, I'm brought into colorful dreams of weight and purpose.

But in those dreams the clash continues and all I know fights for all control of who I am and who I will be. The hopes for tomorrow and the dreams of yesterday meet in the present and battle for control of the distant future... and the soundtrack of Jimmy Scott's "Sycamore Tree" is all I can hear.

Eric's new group, Waiting for August, features the vocals of the encanting Sharon Burriola, who I may have met once or twice in my life but who I am now completely starstruck by.

The family tradition of music continues and one day I hope to have something more to contribute to it than I do now.

I've been existing these days between two planes of reality. On the one side, there are those old memories of my past that won't let go. Those things I did that defined me as a good citizen, upstanding member of the community, go-get-em kind of guy.

Then there's this darker side. There's this side of me that really enjoys imagining what I would be like in another sort of life - maybe a vigilante riding a motorcycle and really jacking people up. Or a kind of prison tough-guy throwing my weight around and imposing my will.

I wonder sometimes what life would have been like if I would have been better at American football. I mean, I was good at the army and I feel like I am tough at the gym, but there's this untapped energy I feel at the gym. Every time I pick up the weights, I feel like I am tapping this huge reserve of unrealized adrenaline and testosterone, just looking for an outlet.

Maybe it's nothing, but I've felt a lot of pent up energy lately. If I come across an opportunity to release it, you'd better fucking watch out.

There is this one guy at my gym that makes everyone uncomfortable. He walks around the gym in track pants and doesn't actually work out. He just talks on his phone. It's all I've ever seen him do in the three months I've gone to this gym. Oh, sure sometimes he'll sit on a bench so nobody can use it, but he's always having a conversation, a very loud conversation.

I'm as puzzled as I am annoyed, of course. Surely there are less expensive places to have a chat, but maybe something about being in the gym makes him more comfortable. Or, maybe he just likes to have an audience for his calls. Or maybe he's just working up the nerve to do something healthy, anything. I guess at least he's walking around.

On the upside, I'm learning a bit of Arabic from him. Maybe in a few months, I can repeat out of context conversations back to him for a bit of fun?

Every day is an adventure in Brussels. Every little thing, from going to the grocery store and figuring out a price per kilo to going to the gym to figure out how to get a dutch-speaking bike to tell you your distance in kilomters, to going to class every day on a train with an electronic voice that tells you first where you are in Dutch, then French, and then English. I really feel like I'm in the middle of a beating pulse of something - unlike anything I've ever felt in any place I've lived. It's all so alive and organic here.

On top of that, the people I've met have really made me feel less like a foreigner in a foreign land than like someone who should have been here all along. The problems in my relationship aside, I'm very happy here.

There's this little old romanian man that plays an accordian every day in front of one of the financial buildings I pass on my way to the metro. He plays upbeat kind of old world euro music and like all the details of my life here, I really like how each little thing makes me feel. I don't normally give him money, but Friday I gave him ten bucks.

I wonder how long this magic - this expat magic - lasts? Right now, I feel like it's going to last forever.

I was up most of last night. These nights I find myself lying awake, watching the headlights of passing cars, listening to them splash through puddles and head off wherever they are going. I have a sneaking suspicion the world as I know it is on the cusp of changing dramatically.

I don't worry about these changes - that's not why I'm awake. Instead, I'm planning how I'm going to handle them. I'm coming up with my plan B and plan C, working out the details and getting ready to turn my sails to the wind to make sure I end up okay.

When all of this blows over, I'm looking forward to little bit of piece. But for now, there isn't any time to waste. I can't shake the feeling that a big ass storm is coming.

The party was decent enough, full of people from about ten different countries. The most common languages were French and English, although from what I could tell, a bit of Spanish flew about once or twice.

From my spot near the door, in the "Anglo corner," I quickly met a German and a French Canadian. They each spoke five different languages, so we weren't really an "Anglo" corner, just the corner of people who felt more comfortable speaking our English.

I made one or two brave forays into the French side of the room, mustering every bit of the six months of lessons I could to mumble my way (often repeating once or twice) through a single sentence, before retreating back to my designated part of the room. It isn't easy. Even when you think you can speak a language pretty decently, you are thrown right back into obscurity by those who use it far more than you ever will.

Within a half hour, six more Anglos arrived, dramatically balancing the party. Of all the people in the room, I was the single one who could speak only two languages. In spite of everything I have tried to do to study and be vigilant in speaking decent French, I am constantly reminded that I am about 30 years behind everyone else. It's a lifetime journey and I am only very moderately closer than I have ever been before.

In a moment of exacerbation at my French, I leaned against the wall and the lights went out. I was confused for a second, like everyone else, before I realized it was my leaning which had flipped the light off completely.

"Desole," I said, again and again, quickly moving into a crowd so nobody would notice.

Within a couple of moments, a kid whizzed around at my feet, and the plastic cup of champagne I was holding went tumbling down to the floor, hitting three French-speaking girls and earning me the standard and world-mastered "French look of disdain."

Within an hour, I had calmed down a bit and even started having fun. I met Pia, a decent German gal with a penchant for pastry cooking. Bernardo and Antonio showed up, a Brazilian-Italian and a Spanish guy, just starting there evening. Julie, Nico, Jules... the list of people went on and on and somewhere in meeting all the people, I forgot I felt so foreign. It was only when I forgot that I really felt comfortable.

By the time I was grabbing my coat to leave, the light went out again. But this time, it wasn't me. It was Bernardo, and as I walked through the apologies, out with some other folks, I felt infinitely more comfortable than when I had arrived.

Sometimes I feel every inch of the 11,000 miles away from home I am. But other times, when I forget, I realize just how much home this is. It's a new home, a place I'm as happy with as any place I've been before.

Hopefully, in time, I'll stop worrying so much about how strange I must be to everyone else and think about how much of an adventure they are all to me. I'm living a rare and unique type of opportunity -- and I don't want to miss a second of it.

For a few years, I'm going to be the bumbling, loud, clumsy American. It's worth going through because I'm 30 years old and whatever comes after that is sure as hell to be a much bigger adventure than anything I've ever done before.

Since coming to Brussels, I've been amazed at the caliber of people I've met. There was Dara, the Irish gal whose wit and personality could change the dynamic of a room full of people. There was Jose, the clever Spanish doctor who made it a personal point to befriend every last person and find out as much about us as he could. There was Antoino, another Spaniard, and part of our little class gay mafia, who could put splits in your side with his humor. Then there's Nicolas, a Greek guy who is a lot like me and who shares my sense of humor and whose intelligence inspires me to think more.

All of these people have been a great introduction to the heart of Europe, a kind of welcoming party. But none of these people live here or will stay here. Each is here for a few weeks or a couple of months and then they are off again, back to wherever they came from. It's like Brussels is that train station in Japan and I'm the cat that gets to know everyone before they are gone again. I live in a junction, halfway between people's origination and destination points.

That type of ephemeral relationship has it's own beauty and I appreciate it. I think too often in my life I've tried to make things into what they weren't or artificially tried to extend things because I was less able to enjoy the present without some sort of eye to the future.

For now, as I learn the languages and cultures of Europe, I'm quite happy to live in the present without expecting too much from the future. Unlike any time in my life before, that really works for me.

But I still have faith that one day, when I'm more integrated into the melting pot of Europe, I'll find more permanent bonds to the people and place, and it will become more of my own. I'll have roots that grew as deep and strong as ever they did in the States.

Like anything growing, though, it takes time and patience. And those are ingredients I've got right now.

We went to Ghent this weekend, because for years we'd seen the pictures of the winding canals and the Nederlandish architecture (all tall and mushed together in perfect unison) and because it's only 8 euros round trip.

I won't tell you anything much about my trip here. That's for my Facebook page (with the pictures). Instead, I want to describe the moment I stood on the bridge (picture at the top of this site) looking out over a winter and frozen, very old city.

I stopped to warm myself in the sun (hey, it was -10, ball-chillingly cold) and I noticed across the street a gay couple walking along hand in hand. I looked around to see what everyone else might have thought, but nothing. No reaction. Nothing. Welcome to Flanders.

It's a relatively small thing, I suppose, but it seemed huge to me at the time. This is why I moved here. This simple gesture of equality nobody flinches at. Simple, easy, small, and completely normal.

Now we're thinking of moving to Flanders for good, to get away from the more hostile Brussels. I'll have to double up on the Dutch lessons, but that's a small price to pay. Each year, the older I get, the closer I seem to get to what it is I'm looking for.

We waded through thousands of people in Brussel's city centre. Everywhere around us, firecrackers went off, thrown by rowdy young men who wanted to watch the crowds scatter. One particular explosion sent a crowd of young women racing toward us, which startled us until the explosion. Like two old men, we gave them a withering look, and then chastised ourselves with what was left of our youth.

When we reached the stairways of the park in front of the pavilion, the music was blasting and scenes from the fall of the Berlin wall were cast on the buildings around us. Some warm up fireworks were just starting and the energy of the crowd around us was electrified and communal. The mass was so great that we stood shoulder to shoulder and heel to toe. To our right, a group of five or six people stood in a circle, at whose center was a girl with a very large champagne bottle and some disposable plastic flutes for her friends to drink from. Right Behind us was another group of rowdy young men and to the left of us were a couple of couples, holding tight for warmth.

Not just five minutes after we got to our spot, the screen changed from the Berlin Wall scenes to a huge countdown clock.

The crowd in front of us noticed, a few pointed, and everyone started counting in all sorts of languages.

The last second of 2009 was just as it should have been, me and the man I married standing together in the busiest, most beautiful and festive part of our new country, finally together after all the years of back and forthing over the ocean. We were here, our first new year in our new country in our new life together. An up in our up and down, just-like-any-couple life.

We had our kiss. The fireworks started and went on, bigger and bigger, in tempo to some David Geta song. The wind blew, wafting the smell of fireworks at us in all directions. Our grins got bigger and bigger and every few seconds, we turned to have another kiss; one kiss in a sea of kisses, one couple in a million.

The reds and golds and greens and silvers of the fireworks exploded through the old stone buildings of Brussels, silhouetting a statue of King Albert on a horse and his father behind him on another horse in the distance. I had never in my life been this close to the fireworks.

For the last few minutes of 2009 and the first of 2010, I was again reassured of everything that the move to Europe was for. This life, this love, this beautiful improbability that started all those years ago captured and framed another unforgettable moment in my memories gallery of my life's best. In the last five years, it hasn't been just about me, it's been about us and our life. It's been about building a life with someone who is so good for the moment you can imagine a future together.

Like other couples, Julien and I have our problems. We're reasonably mature people with good communication, so nothing is insurmountable for us, but whatever problems we sometimes have, it's good to know that we still enjoy each other's company enough to keep going. Who knows what tomorrow brings for anything in this world, but for today, for this year, for right now - things are just as they should be.

This was my first New Years in Belgium, but I imagine the years will fall away in blissful enjoyment before I even notice it, just like in the first moments of this year. It's the color and beauty and love we fill those moments with that make it all worth picking up your life and moving eight thousand miles to another country to keep it all going.

The years go quicker now and I find I can't slow time enough. I don't even try any more. Now I just try to enjoy it enough to say I was worthy of getting the shot. If the last six years are any indication, I'm doing just fine at that.

There's something about numbers starting over that give us hope. When the odometer in your car turns over, when your bank account reaches a new set of zeros, or a New Year approaches, there's a clean slate feeling that makes us believe we can put away the discomfort of a year ago and live for one ahead of us. There's comfort in a new number.

That's the way I'm choosing to look at this new year. When we're standing near the Atomium for our countdown, we're going to put behind the troubles of a new married couple and try to look forward to the hope of a New Year. For me, I'm going to stand up with enough strength to know that whatever happens, the hope of this new start, this annual rebirth of dreams, will give me the time marking I need to step forward more.

New Year's Eve is that rebirth to me, to have confidence in what the next year offers. This new start is how you bury the discomfort and uncertainty of the years past.

Tonight, whether you are celebrating your New Years countdown in Kamloops BC, in Austin Texas, in Dublin, in Barcelona, or in the Hague, I hope that you'll take the time as the numbers turn over to think about what your new start will look like.

The new year is like a metronome, marking the time of your life. It's up to you to keep the beat, even when you feel a little out of tempo.

I've always found the darkness relaxing. There is a warmth in the darkness, like the deep sounds of echoes reaching the furthest corners of a cathedral ceiling, up where the light or heat of candles doesn't reach, but where the sound is deepest and longest.

I find it wondrous to be able to look up and see the twinkling light of stars reaching our eyes, even though these stars have been long dead for thousands of years. This light they send out, this last evidence of existence, goes shooting out in all directions throughout the universe, while time has long moved on and nothing of the star exists in this dimension but the darkness behind the light. The beauty of the light isn't near as wondrous without the darkness of a lost existence behind it.

Back in the day, when I was forced to go to church, I was struck by the explanation that light and darkness are symbolic of a great struggle of good and evil. I don't believe that the universe, as marvelous and complex as it is, can really be just a battle field for two opposing factions, no more than I believe that there are only two dimensions or two types of colors. It seems overly simplistic, and even unfair, to try to paint the universe with the dichotomy of the goods and evils of humanity.

In the deepest parts of the world's oceans, it isn't the darkness that is scary, it's the light. It's the brightly-colored lights generated by predators that symbolize the most danger, serving as lures to unfortunate creatures drawn to it. Conversely, it is the darkness that is far more safe.

But the best example of the welcome comfort of darkness is sleep, when it has no trouble coming. It is the darkness in sleep that regenerates the body and provides the blank palate for dreams to be splashed. It's the unwelcome flashes of the neon light from the Chinese restaurant downstairs or the passing headlights of a car that interrupt the comfort and tear the delicate fabric of sleep.

When people say they are scared of the darkness, what they mean to say is that they are scared of the unknown, what they can't see or identify, yet when we are born in the womb and when we pass in our sleep, the first and last things we see are darkness.

There is a material in the universe scientists have recently identified called "dark matter." It's an unidentified energy that flows through the universe for some unknown purpose. I like to think it's a sort of comforting amniotic fluid that allows existence to take place, that holds the universe and dimensions together, and allows the moving of one dimension to the next. How striking a though it is that the power of the universe isn't the life-giving light of the sun or the self-generated light of a deity, but the unheralded energy of dark matter.

Perhaps that's why I find it most comforting to write at night, when my world is calmest and the energy of the universe can most easily reach me. This darkness, my darkness, isn't a sign of symbols or melancholy. It’s a comfort in knowledge and maturity to understand and appreciate the universe for what it really is, instead of the symbols we fear that it might be.

There is comfort in the darkness and I wrap myself in the cloak of it each day to soothe and balance the over-exposure to light.

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” -Stephen King