  I'm in the middle of reading " urlLink The Favourite Game " by Leonard Cohen. It reads like a series of photographs in someone's head, as if you're perusing these flashes of memories. There's something almost dreamy about it, which isn't surprising as Cohen is a poet. The book has the feeling of being poems, linked together by a common thread, and there's a sense of flow that I haven't encountered in many books. A passage stood out to me when I was reading it home tonight. "It's not simple for me.
I'm not trying to be funny. Why do you want to sleep with me? " "Because we once held hands. " "And that's a reason? " "Humans are lucky to be connected in any way at all, even by the table between them. " "But you can't be connected to everyone.
It wouldn't mean anything then. " "It would to me. " "But is going to bed the only way a man and woman can be connected? " Breavman replied in terms of the flirtation, not out of his real experience. "What else is there? Conversation?
I'm in the business and I have no faith in words whatever. Friendship? A friendship between a man and a woman which is not based on sex is either hypocrisy or masochism. When I see a woman's face transformed by the orgasm we have reached together, then I know we've met. Anything else is fiction. That's the vocabulary we speak in today.
It's the only language left. " "Then it's a language which nobody understands. It's just become a babble. " "Better than silence. " I thought about that as I was coming home. Is that really the only kind of connection we have, men and women?
Anyone, for that matter? There's something lyrical about the way Cohen worded that. Something that rings true, and yet, is unsettling because deep down inside, I desperately want to know that sex isn't the only connection that we have as human beings, "the only language left. " Feeling connected is what makes me seek out other people, and it's what drives me into my moods of reclusiveness, because I don't feel connected. Sometimes, I think I'm terribly needy because I have to feel like there's someone out there that I can talk to, someone I can actually communciate with and not feel quite so alone. I know on a rational level that I'm not alone, but it's hard to actually confront the feeling sometimes and try to keep that in mind.
It rained tonight, like a torrential downpour. It was so welcome because for the past couple of days, the weather has been so hot and sluggish, and perhaps the rain will clear things up. I got caught in it as I was walking to the C-Train station after work, but I didn't really mind because it was warm. My socks and shoes were soaked, so I splashed in the puddles, which was kind of fun. I couldn't help but to wish that there was someone there I could walk with, in the warm rain, and to splash in puddles. The rain smells different here.
In Vancouver, it smells of green, growing things, organic and alive. Here, it smells hot and tired, almost like a relief. During a thunderstorm, the smell of ozone in the air is so thick, it reminds me a bit of Montreal in that way. I love the thunderstorms here, but again, I wish there was someone to enjoy them with, just someone to sit with and listen to the rain. Perhaps I'm really just missing my sister. I miss the quiet companionable silences.
I miss that feeling of connection in the moments of not speaking, of just knowing that the other person is there. 
