I met Christine Delay in 2005 at a housewarming party for her and some other people I didn’t know at the time (Gord).  In time, I came to know her and her “delayservision” well at 106 and beyond.  And though she’d likely deny it, she has grown to become one of the most influential people in my life.  There isn’t enough space on the entirety of internet to describe it all, but I can tell you, she was by my side as I explored the new world around me.  She was there as I began to discover who I really and truly was during a pretty siginficant era.  Christine Delay has helped me to reflect on where I’ve come from, enabled me to live and enjoy life freely, supported me in my dreams, and has created ridiculous amounts of laughter in my life.  We are musically and cosmically connected, and when I’m with her, I feel like I’m on fucking steroids.  She was, and is, the Lungsy, to my Ballsy. 

A few nights ago I asked Delay this:

“I write this blog, not sure if you’ve read it. Thought you might be interested in doing a guest post about something I would want to remember. It would be subject to me as an editor and likely writing a preface…. 

The purpose of my blog is so that I don’t forget any of it, and I would love one day to remember a piece of my life through your eyes.”

Endings — by Christine Delay

I seem to be swimming in them lately. Years ago, our beginning was born from an epic one at that. You ask me what I remember of that time, those places, these people we still know who have grown their limbs in subtle ways. I can tell you that I am still sitting by that window in that grungy apartment on Robert Street, having dinner for the first time speaking in excited spurts, like comic book bubbles bursting with idealistic hope. I can tell you that my hope was spotty at best but my idealism big and true, strong like a submarine. I remember my surprise when weeks later we were neighbours and together we muddled through, in the prime of our lives, and anxious to see what was up ahead just beyond the scope of our reach. I remember mistakes, but they are not so important unless we see them for the bricks they really were. I remember loud, reckless weekends followed by sullen Sundays spent aimlessly roaming the streets in packs, just happy to have each other. And then Mondays.

Chain smoking. We did a lot of that. Fires, and love, dishes done together, children and then adults, near misses, long shots… and now babies and jobs. I don’t remember crossing that bridge. 

Mostly I don’t know what I remember from those days. As I sit and rummage through the snippets of fractured memory made blurry by time’s passage, I hear the buzz of many conversations, and feel the anticipation of the night’s beginning. Yet it is done and I am done with it, for there is not enough room in the past for me. But let me say this. I remember you, and I miss you. I remember you, and I do… I miss you. 

That time, just like a river. It is a beast, this creature that breathes and pulses full of currents of blood. Like the hair in the mane, mostly unaware that it is a part of something larger. 

I remember that it happened and I hope that it mattered. Mostly I remember that we were children then adults, near misses, long shots…. fires, love, and dishes done – together.

The Night We Met , totally money.

We didn’t have a clue what was in store for us.