Noemi, the spanish-canadian flower

25Aug08

Noemi was born in Spain, raised in Toronto. When I knew her, she was an associate professor of Asian Cinema at Santa Cruz. She told me that her dissertation was on “terror and trauma in contemporary Japanese film,” but never explained what that means.

We met while I was hitchhiking up the Pacific coast highway. I bought her a slice of pie at a roadside diner and asked for a lift. She told me I could come with her, as far as she was going, but that I couldn’t stay in Santa Cruz.

I wound up camping in her backyard for four months, sometimes sleeping in my tent, though more often then not, I slept inside with her. The best night we had together, I baked vegan lasagna and we listened to old bebop records and smoked hashish out of a little ivory pipe. That time, Noemi came outside and slept in the tent with me.

Two days later, her girlfriend returned from sabbatical in Hamburg. She threw me out. Japanese Cinema remains an enigma.

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