saturday night pasta mayhem

anna, ryefield and mel start the pasta dough on saturday night…. beginning the production

i am daunted, returning to this space after four days absence, so upside down and crammed full the last few days have been, where does one start?

on my drive into east vancouver on monday afternoon, i was thinking about home and what constitutes that for me. east van, victoria and gibsons are all places that figure into my sense of “coming home”, no matter that i have fixed residence in only one place, i have community like family in each of them. thus, at the moment i have finally bought a house, i have less of a fixed sense of home than ever, anchored in place but not in imagination. there i fit easily into the worlds of my friends, bringing my own meanderings to the table as arguments and songs. the stable home representing a solidity in the world that encourages adventuring beyond.

oh the epiphanies coming off drunken weekends! victoria turned out to be one long party starting when i arrived friday and carrying through until i finally dropped from exhaustion on sunday night. i mostly stayed with my friend anna and allowed her to play the role of social co-ordinator (since she’s so damned good at it), which took all the thinking out of the weekend for me and allowed me to just go along for the ride. there were many great moments, particularly the pasta-making dinner party we organized at anna’s place (and where the photos in this post came from). extra-nice (from my perspective) was the fact i spent quite a bit of time with the person i met on my last trip over, and confirmed the quite nice connection that characterizes our interactions (though one i feel no pressure to do anything about – distance and time being realities i am content with). it’s good though, to feel desired every once and awhile, and i had plenty of that on my trip which adds some colour to my week even after the fact.

i also managed to visit my friend dustin on sunday afternoon at william head, marking the first time i have seen him as an official “visitor”. i am going to make the effort to visit once every two months or so, which seems a realistic schedule given i seem to be on vancouver island more often in the past 10 months. he’s written a second novella which he promises to mail, and has decided to apply for day-parole in september which would have him in a half-way house by next spring. not too much longer for him, and then maybe we will get to hang out in the real-world again.

on monday afternoon i arrived in vancouver with enough time to do some grocery shopping and play music in the park and visit with a friend i bumped into before going to band practice at ben’s. we’re getting ready for our folklife show this saturday with a new song and a couple new arrangements of old songs and it’s sounding surprisingly good for a group that has barely played together since october. i am still trying to figure out what my weekend will look like as a composer friend is staging a dance show on friday and i may stay in town for that and then leave early for seattle the next day (sounds too like my friend anna wants to come along for the roadtrip and show which will make for more fun).

so just to sum up – before clicking the more link for additional photos – life is pretty damned good at the moment, despite being back at work.

saturday night pasta mayhem

making pasta takes a long time, we started at 7 and ate at 11, which allowed for the consumption of many drinks from start to finish

this photo was taken by my friend greg on my camera – rolling out the dough takes a lot of hands.