Landing
With Jeff’s letter I was able to renew my expiring Singapore passport then I received notification from Immigration that there was going to be yet another delay in processing my Skilled Worker Immigration application (which I had submitted years ago in graduate school once I met all the required criteria/points), and that they had rejected my new work permit which I had applied to cover such a delay. Staying in Canada on an expiring visitor’s visa is not viable, plus my body and I are past the age of desirability to courtesan for living expenses.
Bob is a talker. He talks a lot. He talked about his gay-bashing case against the police to everyone he met. We were out grocery shopping when we came across someone from the office of the leader of the NDP who was canvassing votes for the upcoming elections. Bob launched into his long spiel which I had heard countless times by then, while I fidgeted with the grocery bags. While expounding about how terrible the government (comprised of the other parties) was, Bob pointed at me and to my embarrassment, told the aide how my immigration application had been delayed for years, and we knew people who applied for immigration after I did and had already gotten theirs. The aide was sympathetic and asked me some questions. She suggested I could try writing a letter to the office about my situation, perhaps someone might be able look into it.
When we returned home, I dug through all the letters from Immigration and wrote a letter that documented all the steps I had taken, all the runarounds and delays I was given since I started the process – such as twice claiming they did not receive RCMP clearance (which the RCMP had already sent it) months after sending confirmation of all necessary documentation, or insisting I needed HRDC LMO for a new work permit for a job even though that specific job was explicitly excluded from those requirements in the policy documentation. I ended the letter with “I have done everything I can to follow the rules and policies, but at this point, I am utterly defeated by the system. I hope you will be able to help me make some headway.”
I sent off the letter not expecting anything. A few weeks passed. Then we received a call from the office, they were not sure what happened or who did what but my application suddenly became unfrozen; I should be getting a confirmation letter in the next few weeks, once I received it I have to show it to the Buffalo office in person to finish processing. Bob wanted to celebrate but I was wary, given the runarounds I have had I could not be sure until I had the letter physically in my hands. The wait was unbearable. When the letter finally arrived, we rented a car and Bob drove us across the border to Buffalo. It was a wet and gray day which mirrored my emotions – I had no long term plans because I had not expected to live past 30, and the uncertainty of my immigration status; now that I can stay and work in Canada without an expiry date, what comes next?
people drift
Land – from Terrible Sanities
unanchored
moments fleet-ing
floating aground
The “correct” approach would be to get another full-time job but I was wary of being exploited again, and weary of being passed over for lack of so-called “Canadian experience” in my resume. Ultimately, I decided to continue freelancing in order to pursue an adolescent dream/fantasy of becoming an opera singer that emerged whilst I was voicing my pain through song in my bedroom in Singapore. The cut-off age for voice competitions was early 30s so I figured I had a year or two to see how far I could take it despite there not being a large market for a male mezzo doing contemporary music. Still I had been singing in open mic nights at a gay piano bar and had a very small fan club who liked my voice; so I thought it was worth a shot. I wanted to live a life I might have lived or chosen, and not one I was compelled to by circumstances or conventions.
Once again, I found myself at the Royal Conservatory of Music, this time auditioning for voice teachers to decide whether to take me on. I auditioned for Roxolana Roslak, a soprano known for her collaboration with Glen Gould. After I finished singing, her only comment was “your voice is …” long pause as she tried to find the right words “… very disturbing”. She did not understand why I took it as a compliment. I thought it was kind of neat to be one of the few singers who could hush a noisy piano bar when one started singing. It was not because my tone or technique was so beautiful that they listened in reverence, but it was distinctive and unexpected that startled them into silence – that distinctiveness was my expression, was the expression of my self.
My days revolved around voice lessons and hours of practice, learning how to sing in foreign languages, and memorizing repertoire. I had a lot to cover in the short amount of time I had, competing against younger singers who already had years of training and experience. I also signed up and was accepted into a government-sponsored Newcomer Entrepreneurship program, with the goal of expanding my freelancing into an analytics consultancy – it provided a small stipend whilst enrolled in a program to study and prepare various aspects of setting up small business in Canada.
In retrospect, I was not just indefatigable I was into an extended mania phase. The sure sign of that was when I became passionate about a random business idea to sell semi-precious stones online. I was tormented by nightmares after I broke up with Marcus, when I came across a small display in a holistic health store that said that smoky quartz absorbed negative energies. I was desperate at that point and was willing to try anything. After I bought a smoky quartz point and the nightmares ceased, I became curious and researched the overlaps between the physical and metaphysical. I was intrigued by the fact that smoky quartz will irreversibly darken when irradiated, and the metaphysical stone remedy for bipolar depression is kunzite – a lithium-based stone.
I had collected a few stones since then and even had some in my cubicle at the exploitative company I worked at, to help me cope mentally and a reminder of the landscapes I had not seen in years. One day I was fed up with a colleague’s taunting. “I thought all these rocks are supposed to make you all zen and peaceful” he jeered. “They give me peace insomuch as I could bash your head in with one” I replied.
Learning to identify hundreds of stones by color and crystal structure, and sourcing for suppliers and specimens was perfectly suited for the intense obsessive-compulsive energies of high mania. I funneled the money from jobs into stocking up on stones – polished, sliced, tumbled, museum specimens. That business never went anywhere. Today I still have thousands of dollars of unsold inventory of stones in storage.
Housing
The year I finally obtained my landed status, the landlord raised the rent by 20% because he liked what I had done to renovate the apartment on my own dime. Because the apartment is now worth more, he had to charge me more. It was ridiculous and egregious, I refused to pay and had to look for a new place. About two weeks in, Bob told me he had found us a place to stay with an elderly friend of his with reduced rent.
Bob’s elderly friend lived on the ground floor of a house due to his age and mobility issues and the other two floors had become run down due to lack of maintenance and his hoarding behavior. In exchange for living there with reduced rent, Bob and I had to clear out decades of junk and dirt and renovate the other two floors to make it livable for us – which we did in stages, and gradually room by room.
About a year later after I obtained my landed status, the Court of Appeals upheld the jury decision on Bob’s case bringing it to closure after 8 years of hearings and appeals. It was the first time a gay-bashing case was successfully brought against the Toronto Police. Bob was grateful for the support I had given him and wanted us to live together even though I had turned down his marriage proposal. I had stuck with Eric from dependency, Erik from debt, Marcus from delusion, James from desperation, and Bob from duty. At this point I figured staying with someone out duty may not be so bad – after all I came from a culture of arranged marriages, and dutiful marriages in one’s twenties to provide grandchildren.
Bob ended up purchasing a small run down house in a somewhat sketchy neighbourhood (someone gets shot dead at the bus stop each year on average) with the money awarded from the case, and we spent a couple of months replacing the roof, walls, stairs, basement, bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms, front porch, backporch – in short a complete overhaul. Bob talked me into holding the house in trust for him under my name, partly because his credit history was shot and was unable to secure a mortgage, and partly to protect it from any collection agencies when he was bankrupted fighting his case. We also opened a secured line of credit against the house to cover renovation costs. In exchange, Bob told me that my paying the monthly mortgage was building my equity against the house. He also put me in charge of the exterior which became a more productive expenditure of manic energy and money. I would end up landscaping the frontyard and backyard with over 200 different species of perennials, shrubs and trees.
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