i woke up early this morning, sat up in bed and felt the darkness of our room warm and safe as a storm moved the sky and trees around outside. i opened my phone and read an article on newyorker.com about leonard cohen, it was drawn out as a short biography, embracing marianne, beginnings in montreal and london. and slowly fed into the sea of depth which is his body of musical works, poetry, love and religion . it had me thinking more about my life and the experiences i have been apart of and the experiences i hope to be apart of, time of high energy and constant movement, being young, as i still am, yet younger, days when i spent every minute thinking about skateboarding. i would lose sleep dreaming about spots i wanted to go to, tricks i wanted to try and often hope to capture. things that i thought would set a certain bar, mostly for myself to try and push, while being highly aware of aesthetic, the execution, form and style. mumbling aside, i have found a relative inspiration between old leonard, and the beauty in the everlasting youth of skateboarding. two things which will constantly make me feel nostalgic and calm. though i have mostly moved away from the physical act of skateboarding, and spend more time focusing on making money, making art and playing with words and beauty, i find great joy in watching the professionals of the four wheeled waltz perform and command the dance with absolute grace and style, and today i want to remember our most recently passed, who did all of the above with the highest sense of grace and style and i believe set the bar that much higher with his part "Dylan" in 2010, for the today's pros to step to. thank you for your contribution Dylan Rieder, our memories of you should never fade.
video still from "dylan" gravis vid.