writing on the wall i'm tessa. i've made this blog because i still believe in the internet, or i pretend that i once did, even though i never explain mysel...
my yellowed canine. a new machine part arrived by post this afternoon. new ears, new ways to mishear neighbours. i won it from the bank that funds the war. wearing spoils in my ears, scorching homes on my phone. at the corner where the trucks fill the air with black. i am the youngest person in my YMCA class in the mid-morning. today, young men watched us from the rafters. can you ever tell with…
"In a station" "I saw" "a woman crying" "She stood against" "the wall" "looking dirty" "& exhausted." "crying quietly" "I asked her who she was" "& why" "she was crying" "She said: 'I" "am a painter" "I have been trying" "to find" "a form the tyrant" "doesn't own–" "something" "he doesn't know about" "hasn't invented, hasn't" "mastered" "hasn't made his own" "in his mind" "Not rectangular," "not a…
Today, I awoke to the first scent of spring slipping through the open window and a message from an old friend on my phone. I will call her D. (If D reads this somehow: I'm sorry, but you know I'm like this. This is a version, but not the version. I am leaving many things in the drawer.) I met D seven years ago. It was July, on high ground overlooking a valley, many thousands of miles from where I…
last sunday, i turned 24!!! and there was a snowstorm!! and sam came to visit! this was my first birthday being off-Instagram (cause who pays attention to fb anymore) and, man... a humbling experience. but what a weird standard that was set for those who grew up with social media that everyone you've ever met wishes you a happy birthday? the best parts of my birthday were, in no particular order:…
Upon reading and, later understanding, the notice that my parents have to put my childhood home on the market, I left the dry winter heat of my old apartment to walk against cutting wind and into one of the richest neighbourhoods in Montreal. Or: between the reading and understanding: there was kleenex, tea, and oatmeal; a hug from my love, a phone call to my best friend; and the image of an aging…
Maybe "particular" is a better word. Of course, you are a particular kind of person, you are a you . But aren't you also like everyone else? And do you sometimes fear it? The question I am asking is whether I am fighting to carve out specificity because that is the human project or because there is a prize at the end of it. The drive to be unique. The fanned out "short" bio. The personalized…
I found my new coat at an off-island Renaissance in the Boutique section. My old winter coat, a long navy A-line coat with large buttons ( very Condé Naste, as Noah would say), had been purchased for $10 at a Dartmouth Value Village in my first year of university and lasted me 5 winters. This winter, it has finally all worn out on the inside, the pockets are no longer pockets. But, mainly, I was…
I begin the blog with the gritty noise of screws screwing into the door hinge. Now the door can open and close. (I'm reading Renee Gladman's Calamities and she begins each essay/poem with "I begin the day". Not "I began" but "I begin". The beginning is always present in the writing.) I begin the evening with the question of what social media has given me and I decide it has given me something…