Written by Philip-Gianni Gaspari
While studying at Concordia University in Montreal, I took several Professional Writing courses. In one of those courses, we were given an exercise in Narrative. The assignment’s instructions seemed simple: “Reflect on your life so far. Write a number of poignant memories. Articulate a connection with each memory.” Then, my professor proceeded to present her example; it was short, sweet, & very personal – truly moving; I was inspired. I understood that the idea was to show connections, rather than point them out. Through a nostalgic & emotional process, I came up with four detailed reflections. I’ve decided to continue working on this assignment, as I deeply connected with the premise of it. Compared to the initial piece I produced, this one has been edited into an article’s fashion, but this is essentially a post-university view on the piece.
Reflections should show you how far you have come, & how grateful you should be for reaching whatever point in your life. For myself, the combinations of reflecting & writing has always been therapeutic & motivating. When I initially worked on this assignment, it was a humbling experience, & gave me a full-circle level of perspective.
If you continue to read, here are the five memories that I used for the narrative assignment. I hope the premise, & spirit, of the original assignment resonates with you as much as it did for me.
When I was a child, my babysitter & next door neighbor, Curtis, was my idol. He was just hitting his adolescent years when I first met him, but we got along really well despite the age difference; I was probably six years old at this time. Curtis introduced me to many games & had a knack for story telling. At this point in my life, he was hands-down the coolest person I ever met. To this day, my mom says that when Curtis spoke “Philip-Gianni looked & listened to him as if it were God.” When I reminisce about the first time he came over, he showed me the real-time-strategy game Starcraft. I was blown away by how cool it was. He not only showed me how to play the game, but explained a lot of the goals, characters, factions, & more. I remember specifically being on my dad’s laptop in the kitchen, downloading the game, & listening to everything Curtis said intently. Pure absorption & admiration.
Curtis continued to hang out & take care of me for many years: he taught me how to ride a bike, he played all kinds of video & board games with me. He introduced me to other kids, older & my age, & also let me stay up late. He taught me ideas of strategy, & had this depth of wisdom extend far beyond his teenage years (at least in my eyes). He could explain things well, such as knowing how to talk to people was just as important as how to listen. But, one specific moment will always stick out to me, among so many.
One of the nights he was taking care of me – back in the early days when I was still young – I began to cry for no real reason other than I missed my parents. At this point, I had done so a few other times, but this time I made Curtis upset because of how poorly I was reacting to his consoling. In this slow descent of us getting increasingly upset with each other, he expressed passionately what really missing someone is, what you should truly cry about.
Remember, we were both young in our own ways at this time – “the young & younger”. He explained about the loss of his cousin in a fatal car accident not long ago, who was only a few years Curtis’ senior. People at the funeral were really missing an individual, & they were shedding real tears.“What are you really crying about?” he asked, then telling me thatnothing bad has happened yet.
Despite being a kid, it made total sense to me. The realization, the passion behind his words, the way he said it remains so vivid to me. He was explaining that I was crying for nothing, in a way that was not harmful, but insightful, & that stuck with me almost instantly. To me it was not just what he said that stuck out but the fact that he was able to explain this to me, a child, without being condescending, trying to be right, or any negative connotation.
Curtis was trying to show that there are moments when you will be tested & you have to be ready; he was trying to make me see that things could be much worse than not seeing my parents for one night. Without downplaying my emotions, he was telling me not to give up so easily & not to submit to a potential outcome that does not yet exist. There’s an importance in standing up when everything you’re feeling is trying to put you down. To me it seems like such a hard lesson to teach a young child, yet Curtis did this more than once, for different reasons, different situations, & in different manners. I often joke that Curtis is my first sensei, but there’s a lot of truth due to his mentorship early, when I was a kid, into a early teen. Who knows, perhaps we learned from each other?
When I was younger, the best place (& only one I knew of) to play Magic the Gathering was at a store called “The Hall of Fame.” Ever since I was introduced to Magic at the age of six, I would go there quite frequently, & later on in life it would become religiously. Since I didn’t have many friends, & even less who played the game, it was the spot to play with everyone & anyone. People wanted to play more than anything, therefore age didn’t matter; the game broke the age barrier in many ways.
Sometimes I went & there would be no one to play with, so I would stick around till, or if, someone showed up. Doing this could lead to me waiting the entire day till the store closed. So I ended up seeing & talking with the guy who worked there most of the time: Ricky.
He was a young guy, & an all around nice person with everyone but he also never treated me as a little child – he treated me as another person, even if I was very young. Over the years we got to know each other well. We talked a lot, he always let me use the phone to call my parents, he would send me to the corner-store next door to get him a newspaper & a snack. He always made sure I would get something for myself too. We would play a lot of foosball since the store had a table, & he would always ensure I could play Magic whenever there were players. Ricky didn’t let me get excluded because of my youth, & actually helped me meet other players.
Whenever I was there & he had some extensive sorting of cards to do, he would ask me to help him & in exchange I could take a few cards; this always depended on the amount of cards we had to sort. Since I had very little money for cards, & my parents thought Magic was worthless – the cards I used to take were really good bargaining tools with the older players. I didnt have much value in my small collection, so these “haymaker” cards Ricky allowed me take, in time this let me trade for the cards I needed to help my competitive deck. One time, he even opened up a fresh deck of cards so that he could play Magic with me. Ricky was looking out for me at the store without being a parent – he was just a really kind person.
When I was in my last year of primary school, we had a big project which served as a sort of “final.” We had to interview someone close to us that we thought was interesting. I realized upon completing the project that everyone in the class had a family member, usually grandparent, that was in the Second World War, or something along those lines. They had these detailed stories of escape, bravery – always some sort of a grandiose story. The person I decided to interview was Ricky. I thought he was interesting simply because he was a cool dude.
For the project, I learned even more about him despite hanging out with him at the store these past six years. I learned his age, his origins, & how much of an easy going man he was. To me, Ricky didn’t need much in life because it seemed like he had it all. He was surrounded by close friends which they built & grew a successful business around; he made a good life for himself. The kids in my class ridiculed me because of who I chose; they made a comparison: “the guy at the card-store versus a war veteran or survivor? This is ridiculous!” I remember having the intuition that even my teacher felt that way about my interview. I could see it in my teacher’s face, the way their eyes reacted to the kid’s laughing at me, everything screamed that she looked down upon my presentation.
I didn’t see it their way. I saw Ricky as an individual who made a direct impact on my life for years: who was cool & kind, living a good & simple life. I thought it was important to showcase this guy because I felt nobody gave him enough credit & that very idea was being brought to life by everyone at school! I was taken aback how nobody could see or understand what I saw. I felt that the kids were riding on the glory of someone else, while I was talking about someone who didn’t even need validation from others, but deserved it.
What was the difference between their candidate & mine? As an eleven year old, I took the time to go to a public place to meet someone & listen to them talk about themselves; ask questions, & more. Everyone else had simply recounted a story that had been told to them since they were young.
It made me mad that nobody understood how my presentation on this person who made such a meaningful impact on my young-life, & that I was trying to show that. Now everyone was making fun of that, my teacher included. Despite the negative ambiance, I was not discouraged. I thought they were all stupid because they couldn’t understand – that fact, actually bolstered my confidence in my beliefs rather than put me down. I was fine in knowing & feeling things that they didn’t.
To this day, I consider Ricky as one of my best friends. I don’t see or talk to him all the time, but we are in constant communication. It’s always love & respect whenever we talk or see each other. He is still that simple-nice-guy. To me, there is more richness in someone like him, an individual who can make anyone’s day simply by helping out with their hobbies, &/or giving them the pleasantries of a great conversation. People yearn for connection & attention, & this man gives that to people everyday, no matter who they are, or how old they are; even as a kid, I understood that to be more real than many other things in life.
In secondary school I was known as a big nerd, but a lot of people loved me because I talked a lot of trash in a really funny way. Therefore, even if I was a nerd, being funny kept me in good-graces, leading me to be friends with a lot of the “bad boys” & I was never really bullied. In my second year, our English teacher (Mr. Clooney will be their name) told the entire class that anyone would be given bonus marks if they would submit to him some creative writing; anything from poetry, stories, at any level, would receive free marks.
Where I sat was on the side of the classroom where all the hooligans sat. The seating arrangement was two desks together to create two rows that were stuck to the far wall of the class; I was seated in the second set of desks & we were a total of six on that side of the classroom. Alone, seated in front of me was a kid who was a reknown troublemaker. Without elaborating too much, he became legendary in the years to come, his life could often be described as a movie, he will be named John in this recollection.
After Mr. Clooney told the class about this “free write, free marks” deal, I went home immediately after school to begin writing about the game that I was playing extensively at the time: Halo 3. I wrote some fan-fiction type tale revolving around the storyline of the game, & handed it in the next day to Mr. Clooney. I remember him being surprised that I handed something in so soon. The following day, before class began, when I was chatting up with my boys in our section of the class, Mr. Clooney walked up to us but spoke to me: “Philip, this is impressive, you should pursue this.”
I was immediately really… really shy. Some of the guys cut Mr. Clooney off with some heckling, saying “Oh you actually handed something in, what the hell Phil, you nerd!” laughing at me, & so on. To my surprise, before even Mr. Clooney could say anything, John stood up for me in an instance: “What are you guys laughing about? The teacher said he could get free marks by handing anything in. He actually did, & the teacher said it’s ACTUALLY good!” John followed this up by cussing out everyone, which I won’t recount for the purpose of keeping this article as clean as possible.
I think John saying that shocked everyone, including Mr. Clooney, because everyone stopped talking about it & the class resumed quickly. I honestly don’t recall too much afterwards, but I never forgot that moment of John standing up for me, & it still sticks with me today. It’s one of the reasons I continued to write & pursue literature in school. This moment essentially motivated me in striving to continue being myself, & following what I feel is right.
I like to think that John did that because he knew I wasn’t like the other guys we knew. He seemed to know I was destined for other things, maybe bigger things, not to sound too cliché. John was always happy to see me, always calling me smart. Throughout the years we’ve known each other, & seen each other grow, he always showed me a lot of respect & I like to think it was somewhat because of the environment we were exposed to. I was not as caught up in it as he was, & he knew that I always stayed true to myself.
It’s easier to see these things now in hindsight, but back then I dont think anyone was conscious of these things, or even thinks of these things. When I reflect on it now, it seemed at the time that he believed in me more than I believed in myself.
Years later, even after this original narrative-assignment-piece was handed & graded, John & I actually reconnected by chance. I reached out to him, & spoke with him numerous times over the phone. One of the first things I did was thank him for the outcome of the story mentioned above, in all details. I told him where I was at now, that I was working a great job, & had majored in Literature, so on – that him standing up for me gave me a level of confidence that would probably not have existed had he not done that.
I could tell he was a bit taken-back. The only thing he replied was “I don’t even remember that. What I remember is that you were always a real guy, & even now, you’re taking the time to call me & have a real conversation. After all these years. You know what you are? You’re a good friend.”
Around the start of 2017, alone, I travelled to Japan… & I hit a major bump on the way there. A few days earlier, during a family gathering, my dad & uncle asked me about my itinerary & travel plans. Already agitated by the fact I was travelling alone, one detail that they panicked about was the fact that my flight from New York to Japan was not at the same airport as when I land in New York from Montreal.
I would arrive from the first flight (Montreal to New York) & there would be only an hours’ time to reach the other airport in New York for my Japan flight. During the entire family get-together, they hounded me & emphasized that I should book an earlier flight to New York directly to the same airport so as not to miss my other flight to Japan. The constant hassling led me to doubt my own planning, & book an alternate flight from Montreal to New York. So, I lined everything up accordingly & gave myself some peace & quiet.
Finally, on the day when I arrived in New York to check in for my flight to Japan, the teller asked me “But… how did you get here?” Without using a whole essay’s worth of words, the short story is that I had to repurchase a ticket to Japan since I didn’t start my ticket at all; the starting point being Montreal.
Essentially my option became that if I wanted to continue my trip to Japan, I would have to gouge into my budget before even starting my actual trip. I had a moment where I could choose not to spend the money & simply return to Montreal. I though of just going to New York City instead, but I didn’t feel that was right. I would scrap everything I had planned simply because I listened to others?
I told myself the lesson here was that I shouldn’t have doubted myself. I’m about to embark on a journey alone, far away from home for a month’s time. The least I should do is trust myself, & go through with my own mistakes, if I were to make any. I ended up doubling down & re-purchasing a ticket for my trip to Japan.
I had been incredibly stressed & anxious the entire time figuring everything out, so much that I could not eat. It was coming up on 10 hours of no food, all the while dealing with various hectic moments, through customs, with the teller trying to call & see if there was an adjustment, & so on. The moment all of that ceased was when I finally arrived on the plane; sitting down, now initiating the departure for Japan. From where I was sitting & what I could see, I realized I was the only white dude on the flight. Just as I noticed that, these two well dressed Japanese women began approaching me in the aisle.
They were not flight attendants, & they greeted me in well-spoken English, explaining that their seats are the ones next to mine. They apologized in advance for the future inconvenience of me moving to let them go to the bathroom. I thought to myself “What an absolutely ridiculous thing to be sorry about” while smiling, replying to them that this would be no trouble whatsoever. They smiled back & thanked me again while I made room for them to sit. All my stress vanished in that small, silly interaction, just as the flight attendant on the intercom began explaining certain protocols & meal choices. One of the meal choices was butter-chicken. I told myself “the real trip is beginning now.”
The time alone so far from home, in a completely foreign culture really helped me solidify my own judgement & intuition, but also the trust of self in handling those things. From then on, I was always conscious of “am I making a decision for myself?”, or if I was potentially making someone else’s mistake rather than my own.
No matter the situation & the conditions, when I led with the utmost best intention & trusted myself fully, there was never a position I could not get myself out of, or grow from. The capacity to fully trust yourself, & know that no matter what happens, or how things unfold, you will find a way through & come out ahead – those are lessons immediately instilled at this point in time.
It’s been over 8 years since my first trip to Japan, where upon leaving, I had no plan on what to do when I got back. I had left my then-job in order to go, I had not been accepted to University (again), & was dealing with a lot of other things that most young adults deal with. Yet, since trusting my own intuition & judgement, I was able to come back & shift my life into an entirely different direction ; one that I built for myself, one day & step at a time.
There are so many events that happen in our life which mark us, & they have so many effects on us, both good & bad, small or large. For myself, the kinds of people we can meet in life is something that inspires me greatly, & I like to talk about people I meet, even showcase what I think is fantastic about them. That helps me find a sense (or piece) of self, & allows me to take what I like most from an individual, & better myself with what I would consider – their greatness. If you’ve read this far, I would encourage you to reflect on your own poignant memories. You would be surprised at what helped piece you the way you are, in all the best ways.
The Gianni Catalogue 
Leave a comment