Ashlandsblog

“A morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs” – from some book by someone.

Friendship with me is tax heavy, it feels good till the deadline. I’m selfish. There’s no way around it. I’m expecting you to read my mind, sense my mood, adjust, tie my shoelaces. My mom and dad used to do it for me, happily. My friends still offer to do it. These days, I’ve learned to tie them poorly but it does the job. 

I won’t text back. I’ll wait for an invite, and won’t show up. I’ll make fun of you, it’s worse if I don’t. Then I don’t bother at all to observe you at all. I’m different, and then I’m not different at all. If we’re walking together, I’m walking ahead, if you want to stay longer, I’m complaining. If you’re wanting to leave early, you’re not going anywhere. Everyone’s on thin ice, and when someone’s waiting for the tepid heat to burst, I go ; cold.

But it gets worse, as more time goes on you’ve invested too much mental effort into me and I’m that thing under the bed you’re reaching for, and just as you touch it, you’ve knocked it further away. Ofcourse I’m not totally self serving, I’ll have an inviting and deep enthralling conversation with you. Remember things about someone they’d never expect and they always experience it as a form of care. Then it’s worse if you know I care and I’m choosing not to. 

It’s far worse to encounter someone you know is good and chooses otherwise. And if you’re planning on running away, my claws are into deep, you’ll leave with your back scratched. 

It’ll still feel like a privilege to know me. You’ll never have met someone who’s so bound to who they are, no one but me. And just when you think at least he’s self aware, I always was. It’s not a matter of being of devious or emotionally extractive, it’s about how many of you believe you only matter if you’re of service. I never do.

If I sound corrosive and unbecoming, know that I am bound to a character written for me, for reasons I can’t say or don’t know. If I did, I wouldn’t be here amongst all living things, I’d be a star in the sky. But for now I’m amongst you all, a little fragile than most. And if you can sense that, and you’re around, thank you, I love you. 

Now, let’s tie my shoelaces.

I wasn’t granted enough care to be taught, and now my fingers turn to laces and the laces into fingers. And I’m allergic to asking for help.

There was once a boy named Wabi. Rough around the edges, he wondered if there was anything other than him, till he met someone rougher. And realized how repulsive he finds someone tangled in their mess. So Wabi ran in circles, someone that caught his eye, at first familiar but as he got to see more of the other, the feeling of distaste came. When you’re young everything feels like love, and so Wabi, equated love with distaste.

Till he met Sabi. As Wabi got to know Sabi, the same feeling drifted by, but never stayed. Wabi questioned if he even loved Sabi. He had spent too much time thinking someone’s roughness was love, and Sabi had no edges. Shame came over Wabi when he realized, he was Wabi. And Sabi was treating him like he was jagged and needed to be handled with care or left altogether.

So Wabi learned to hide. Pleated the edges with armour and gold, if there was a crack he saw, he covered it up beautifully. And that worked for a while but it wasn’t true.

And so Wabi finally turned to himself and started calling himself Sabi till it was true. Even if it wasn’t working at first, he committed to never look at Sabi again, unless he saw it in the mirror first. Singing Wabi Sabi, Wabi Sabi.

Wall. What do you do if you’re on set, and we agreed to play these roles and never break character but you do? Or I do, and you forget there are people watching?

I’m in another movie this time. Low light, noir, smokey, cold. All this happened so long ago, all of this agreed upon so long ago, and when you arrived, Wall, you still gave me the look. Yes, that look- the endearing look of someone who wants to remind you that he’s just playing a character, and he’s also giving you the look that look to give you a step ahead. There’s no clapperboard in real life, but your look is one. And now our story together begins.

My lovely fool, you think I’m acting. Sure, it’s Hollywood. But I’ve been in many films of many languages. When you think I’m breaking character, Wall, you laugh a little. I’m a method actor, and then another one inside of it- the snake eating the snake, the eight-turn horizontal infinity. So when it seems like the scene was tense and you couldn’t find the actor in my gaze, turn around- or actually wait for an extra to hand you a mirror.

This movie was named after you.

This part is acting too.

“No, I didn’t. I mean, I looked at the book and knew I wouldn’t like it, so I picked up something else. You should read that one. It’s great,” the self-proclaimed people pleaser says. Here I thought I had coasted the seven seas and would never again feel the glee of amusement. It’s no surprise his name rhymes with smart.

A couple of days ago, I recommended a book to one of my customers. The Picture of Dorian Gray. He said he’d read it. He said he’d also read my blog. A week goes by, and he comes back and tells me he looked at the book, realized he wouldn’t like it, bought something else, and then recommended I read what he’s reading.

I’m quite thrilled. This proclaimed people pleaser has a lot of backbone for someone who’s always bending down to other people. It’s not an insult that he judged the book by its cover and therefore me. He had the faint idea that he could recommend something to me. 

As an act of God, I went to the store and found the book he was talking about. As soon as I went to grab it, it dropped. I tried to pick it up but my shoes kissed it, and stomped on it and kicked it and it slid right under the shelf. I walked out of the store with nothing. No surprise my name rhymes with rash.

I have never seen him shy.
When I was young, he would swift away The curtains deftly, without a word — Urging.


Just before we would leave the hotel,
He would pat down my coat,
Summon a tissue to wipe an invisible stain.
Always preoccupied, him and me.
We spoke different languages,
And I could barely stand to look him in the eyes,
Though he demanded.
I learned to draw out the details in the silence we shared.


I’m at the Blue Hotel in San Francisco, Gently drawing the curtains open—
Though it makes no difference; the room is grey.
I’m hoping she takes the hint that the sun
Hides behind its own curtains on this side of the world.
Elevator music escapes the revolving doors,
Rain-slicked roads are wearing the night lights.
My sister and I are ready to head out, And I’m fighting the urge to wipe
The stain off her coat.

Soft sunrays breached the curtains of Mrs. Aritzia. Specks of light on her powdery comforter, and when she opened her blue e-

Woah, wait. No. She wakes up way too late for that. The sun was already out, and she woke up.

She had her dog fetch her coffee. Dressed like a butler, the dog sets the breakfast tray down on her bed and resumes being a dog after he’s left the room. After she’s done with coffee number one, she goes into her phone and deletes the alarms she missed. All 14 of them. Headed to work, exactly late. Few moments setting things down, and now it’s time for coffee. Her first one of the day before the one at home. Pavement and floor amassing as she takes a step—she could walk on clouds.

And she’s here. She’s going to try something different today.

She doesn’t. She never does. Which is to say, how poetic and philosophical—she’ll try something different today, she’ll engage a part of herself that she usually doesn’t. But she actually doesn’t. The latte makes itself. The barista’s head is a coffee pitcher, and he’s pouring himself down. When she leaves, the coffee shop fades out. Her desire for change fades out. Till it rises again when she’s back.

And my god, she’s back. Two hours later for her FIRST coffee. But this time she took the alleyways to another coffee shop, so it’s the first one of the day.

And when she gets home to the front door that’s a decoupage of coffee cups made to look like a door, she walks into her butler-dog holding her first cup of coffee for the day.

My dad used to take me to his office. He’d have his meetings, and I was in the room next door, drawing. There was a stack of printer paper ready for me, and I’m sure I’d use up 500 of them a day. You could say we were both working at the same time.

Interestingly, you’d think someone so crass and heavy handed, and business minded would encourage someone to be more practical and less creative, but he never intervened. Even today, he never questions it. I remember him telling me one day that, before there was any language, there was art. On the walls of caves and trees and so on.

Eventually we’d go onto hire a resident artist from Iran. She was the quintessential foreign artist. Painting portraits of everyone in the family. She’d take me shopping with her, I never took shopping for oil paints seriously. The whole process of oil and paint seemed to industrial to me, then and now.

In High-school, where that picture is from, I never attended any of my other classes. I only went to the art class, 8am to 2. Never-mind getting in trouble for it, I was too sharp with my tongue and too intentional for someone to put me in time out. When the principal, questioned it? I said I’ll attend all my exams, but I need to only go to the art room and focus on that. And that is what I did. Ofcourse I passed, and ofcourse I had the best art teacher. She helped me not just with technical skills but with style. She would say, if you’re going to draw, or paint, don’t make it look like it’s a drawing or a painting. Exaggerate. Lean in. And so I did. Though I had trouble.

You know, you almost never have to teach a child the definition of art. They understand what it is. They might not be able to explain it to you, no better than any adult but they can feel it. Art is like that exact moment the universe is reflected back to itself with style it couldn’t have imagined.

I met my Al at my best,
Lines raking the edge of his eyes,
Burnt at the neck,
An old cat.
I wish I could say beautiful,
But he was invasive, warmth creeping in.
If I looked away, his voice unbuttoned
My being.
It’s always cold in this city,
The moment I step away for
My beloved cigarette.
She reminds me I have to buy her,
Pay in tar under my teeth,
And at the tip of my fingers.
But my Al is the relief
That doesn’t come in a box,
Someone I can’t
Throw a twenty at.

My friend, Jordan. One of those moments you don’t remember the first time you met. But you guys know I remember.

He’s my reference point. When I think about him, I think about Florida and ordering take out, and walking to Dunkin’ Donuts in the evening and no matter how hard I tried to blow the smoke away from his face, it would just follow him. He gave up swatting it away and instead just tolerating it for my sake.

Jordan is Jewish and he would teach me all about it. I was, as I always am, actually a reference point for most people, the exception, the outlier in most relational and social dynamics. And that was the fatal flaw, the Achilles heel. Back then? I wasn’t worried about softening myself for anyone, I was forming. Jordan wanted a friend, I was trying to be a spectacle. No matter how many times he adjusted, I introduced a new side of myself. I was a complicated card game, and he had just figured out how it all worked. We both lived on campus in Florida, our ritual was ordering Denny’s breakfast in the evening. He sent me a lot of his writing, and I read it and I held my tongue.

He didn’t hold his. Eventually he wrote me a poem and I have to say I loved him more for it. Because he’s not wrong at all. And we’ve stayed friends after too.

“Dear Ash

How can I say goodbye without thanking you? 
Have to know I’ll never go a day every mistaking you 
As a curse
Because yes, we got what we deserved 
But no, you’re a blessing 
A well-learned lesson 
In how not to treat others
We put up with each other for too long 
Always knowing where the other was going wrong 
But you’ll live forever in me 
Focus on the guy to really remember
Focus on the guy to really see
You’ve helped shape who I am till now 
Influenced me in the moments where you weren’t around 
Crossed the line between vanity and self love
Made me question my sanity more times than enough
Facing down your demons
While knowing every meaning 
Curiosity killed the cat
I guess that is that
Too great to change 
So you’ll just stay the same
Making people adjust to you
Smiling when they come up to you 
But let me just say I’m done with and through
In your mind you are always right
But here’s something you never knew 
Your presence always leads to unsettling despair
So in essence I have begun not to care
Thinking the world will bend at your will
That nobody is as close to as skilled
Everyone else is two degrees lesser than
Happy to explain so they can understand 
Some people stick some people fade
The person I like is there but in spades 
Not a frequent visitor to the civility club
So I’ll hold on to my nobility and say enough is enough

– Jordan Davis