Goodbye III (Vancouver characters) - In english

For those of you reading this in English, this is the second part of a long text I started in Spanish. You didn’t miss much: a couple of pages of rambling about quantum mechanics, ostrich farms and the nature of friendship.

So, what exactly meant to say goodbye to Vancouver? Vancouver is not so much a city as it is a lifestyle. Vancouver means coming back from work and go to a crowded beach and play volleyball against the sunset, ride your bicycle into a fairytale forest, or ski by night in the mountains with the city at your feet… and still have time for a drink with friends afterwards. Vancouver is not a city, but a postcard.

One summer morning I was trying to cross Burrard bridge, but police had closed it to traffic.

- What’s going on? - I asked.

- A guy is trying to jump.

- Wow! Do you know what movie is it? Can I watch?

The cop stared at me.

- It is not for a movie. He is trying to commit suicide.

I looked around: Blue ocean, impressive mountains, people playing on the beaches downtown, sailing boats, shopping on Granville island, the Shakespeare festival by the waterside… someone trying to commit suicide sounded to me as remote as a kid trying to escape from Disneyland. But there is more to it than that. One of my favourite quotes by Lawrence Durrell is: “A city is a world when you love one of its habitants” I guess than even paradise would be nightmarish if you are not able to love ANY of its habitants.

And that’s what it meant to me to say goodbye to Vancouver. It meant to give up sharing the day to day life events with my close friends.

So, how to keep up to date with all the friends in Vancouver, Querétaro & Guadalajara? Sending pictures, writing letters. Is the way memory ambushes oblivion, Funes wrestling Alzheimer.

…boy, that party was chaos, so much noise, so many people, so many drinks where do I start? Colombians! Clara and Diego: ‘no drinks thanks, we have a tennis match tomorrow morning’. Which they do around 7 days a week. Yet their favourite sport is Public Demonstrations of Affection… There is a little baby they love so much that they are about to give up their lifestyle and move across the world for him. Is a baby girl they have never met, they have never seen before.

Munching on chips next to them was a tall guy in white sweater: Francois, a Spanish fluent Quebecois. Her charming Salvadorian girlfriend Gaby is nowhere to be seen in the pictures, not that she is shy, is just that people was slowly drifting from the living room to the kitchen, to the balcony, to the twilight zone an spontaneously re-appearing in the living room, as if the party was choreographed by M.C. Escher. BTW, merci beoucoup for the afro-latin CD.

Even if you have ever seen Poppi you would recognize him in pictures. To begin with, he is the only stylish guy in the party. For all I know is the only stylish guy who has worked in the software industry. But there again, he has worked in the alcohol industry, the ‘new age industry’ (look for Oxigen clinics in some late parties), fetish industry, and so on and so on. An East Indian with a perverse sense of refinement.

There was a lady in an orange fleece:Kas, she barely understands my accent, and I really struggle with hers. Consequently we have come really close friends. I only know a handful of people who has her drive to create originality around her, colors, shapes, music; combined with an irreverent sense of humor (did I mention she is a brit?). She subsists on vegetarian food and dark pints, mostly the latter.

Next to the lady in orange, her Irish boyfriend John Hughes shares quite a few passions with her: the outdoors, hence Vancouver, pubs, live music, clever conversation. For two years we worked in the same office without knowing each other, and within days of started carpooling together I realized I’ve found one of my lifetime best friends. How many potential best friends are camouflaged in our routine? Countless allies disguised as strangers. Just like me, he is the youngest of a large catholic family. He is also a living proof that there is such a thing as gentle sarcasm.

Boy! So many pages already, and I have just mentioned a handful of people! What about the Iranians? Goldnar, the museographer who speaks Spanish with accent from Barcelona and vocabulary from XIX century poetry; Saman and Juliet, you should have seen their beautiful Baha’i wedding in Stanley Park. What about the Egyptians, the Malay, the Chilean, the Swedish, the Dutch? What about the yugos? (None of them really care much about serb / croatian technicalities) Here is a Serbian recipe: Mix Slobo and Vesna with anything: a book, a movie, a beer, a public square, Gaby and Juan. As a result you’ll get uninterrupted conversation to year 2060.

There are so many stories, so many friends… and I still haven’t even got to Masayo, Rena, Gaby & Juan, Jennifer, Mr Al, Pablo, Kethan. I guess I have to stop here. There is a Lorena McKennitt concert tonight, there is a subway to catch, a ticket to buy. There is the purpose of letting you know about me once in a while, to ask often what’s new with you.

Alejandro
Toronto, 15 Nov 2003

PS. 16 Nov: I met Lorena McKennitt. She looks like an average person, her hands look, and feel, like a steelworker hands. But when she started singing, it was magic. Average persons can make magic after all (I probably stole that line from Harry Potter).