Sunny sunday afternoon; this may be my last visit to Parc Lafontaine. It's been 'the last time' a lot these days. I'm getting a lump in my throat. Some lady just walked by holding a white cat. Two children giggle in an impromptu hammock behind me.
On the waterside rocks below me a woman with blonde dreads and two hyper sons strums a guitar covered in stickers. She sings 'Dear Prudence.' Her voice is sweet. With my chin on my knees I let my head fall to the left and watch the late afternoon sun sparkle through the fountain. The air is soft. I've brought a book but leave it unopened, deciding instead to let my 'last time' feeling keep me company. I'm thinking about last night's 'bon voyage' party. 'Til 3am we sat, torchlit and barely noticing the chill, eating weird snacks in no particular order and sipping 'fruity quebeckers' that my generous host concocted for this event only.
Pulling jackets tighter against the cool night, lighting smokes in unison, laughing over each other's border-crossing horror stories that included such highlights as: a vibrator; homeless drug-sniffing dogs on a canine WorkFare program; eating the acid; smuggling illegal immigrants in a Budget® rental car; a customs officer who was all but ready to subject a sleeping dog to a breathalizer, and German police officers yelling "dickhead! dickhead!"
The water is pretty and chick is strumming a tune I don't recognize. Some dude named Pablo has just walked up to me again and asked me for the third time if I want to smoke a joint with him. I decline. I'm smoking alone. Besides I'm deeply content to smile over my friends' most dear generosity that has left me with a wacked-out painting, a mild hangover, and a salty taste from the specially selected cheese that you have to eat with your hands and looks, for all the world, like creepy scary doll hair. I'm going to miss this. And the conversational meander that happens between intelligent quirky people, the crazy connections: the "no way, I have a 'being high and seeing a racoon' story too;" the 80s punk bands, the same awful drive-share guy with the photo album and the terror-inspiring driving habits. I'll miss sharing a taxi with a brand new friend that I wish I'd met ages ago.
I'm losing the sun now. Dreadlock lady must have taken her guitar and her boys home. I place my half-finished water bottle into my bag. It'll be time to walk back soon and finish packing the cartons I've been pilfering from the nearby shops and neighbours on recyling days.
6/24/2007
6/21/2007
Prayer of Midsummer
According to the Celtic calendar, the season of summer—Beltane—begins on the first of May. The solstice then is summer's midpoint. I like to think about this:
"On this, the longest day of the year, an annual miracle occurs. At dawn, the first rays of the sun touch the hele-stone, the solitary sighting stone that stands outside the great circle of Stonehenge. The miracle of the longest day is celebrated by peoples all over the world as the time of greatest light and blessedness. Tonight we will have the shortest night, the least darkness of the year, as the sun climbs to its zenith in the heavens.
At midday, stand in the sunlight, which (unless you are very far north or very far south of the equator) will be directly overhead. Check to see where, if anywhere, your shadow is. Most people will find that there is scant shadow at all. All living creatures cast shadows; it is only spirits who have none. This is the nearest we can come to resembling spirits in this reality. Become attuned to the midsummer sun. Absorb the warmth and blessedness, and in return hold in your heart those who lack the blessing of light. Do not make any prayer for things to be changed one way or another; just hold these places and beings in your heart and let the sun shine upon them. Come back to awareness of your own time and place, and give thanks for the longest day.
It is traditional to make a bonfire at twilight and stay up late dancing and singing with the community. If you cannot do this, light a candle and make your own blessing for all beings on this happy day."
—Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Spirit
"On this, the longest day of the year, an annual miracle occurs. At dawn, the first rays of the sun touch the hele-stone, the solitary sighting stone that stands outside the great circle of Stonehenge. The miracle of the longest day is celebrated by peoples all over the world as the time of greatest light and blessedness. Tonight we will have the shortest night, the least darkness of the year, as the sun climbs to its zenith in the heavens.
At midday, stand in the sunlight, which (unless you are very far north or very far south of the equator) will be directly overhead. Check to see where, if anywhere, your shadow is. Most people will find that there is scant shadow at all. All living creatures cast shadows; it is only spirits who have none. This is the nearest we can come to resembling spirits in this reality. Become attuned to the midsummer sun. Absorb the warmth and blessedness, and in return hold in your heart those who lack the blessing of light. Do not make any prayer for things to be changed one way or another; just hold these places and beings in your heart and let the sun shine upon them. Come back to awareness of your own time and place, and give thanks for the longest day.
It is traditional to make a bonfire at twilight and stay up late dancing and singing with the community. If you cannot do this, light a candle and make your own blessing for all beings on this happy day."
—Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Spirit
6/19/2007
Benediction
Evening sun
at this late hour and sloping degree,
is possible only at this time of year.
It bathes my small yard in a most hallowed light.
Weeds throw complex shadows
onto the mossy ground
and breathe some benediction
to an open sky above.
at this late hour and sloping degree,
is possible only at this time of year.
It bathes my small yard in a most hallowed light.
Weeds throw complex shadows
onto the mossy ground
and breathe some benediction
to an open sky above.
6/18/2007
Waist deep in lilac
It turns out all those weeds in my front garden—the ones that have grown waist-high through my negligence—have bloomed into a tiny meadow of lilac.
6/14/2007
Reconstituted
I've just walked from St Henri to the Plateau in terrycloth flipflops.
I didn't really mean to. I mean, I did mean to end up in the Plateau. I just didn't mean to start from St Henri. It's just that I'd ended up in St Henri in a taxi-van from Verdun with my friend and two free bookcases that she'd just got from a totally cool couple who were moving to Nun's Island. She paid my metro ticket at Peel Station since I'd agreed to help her go fetch them. This we'd discussed over a cigarette on the steps in front of Thomson House after my colleagues had somehow reduced my dissertation proposal to powder with nothing but their nakedly honest questions.
I didn't really mean to. I mean, I did mean to end up in the Plateau. I just didn't mean to start from St Henri. It's just that I'd ended up in St Henri in a taxi-van from Verdun with my friend and two free bookcases that she'd just got from a totally cool couple who were moving to Nun's Island. She paid my metro ticket at Peel Station since I'd agreed to help her go fetch them. This we'd discussed over a cigarette on the steps in front of Thomson House after my colleagues had somehow reduced my dissertation proposal to powder with nothing but their nakedly honest questions.
6/09/2007
Park Lafontaine
Remind me to tell you about my friday afternoon,
smokin a joint in Parc Lafontaine.
And the rush of joy that swept over me
at opening a greeting card from my lover that reads,
"I'm soooo fucking in love with you!"
And get me to tell you about my troubling newfound love for Montreal.
It's like Montreal is on best behaviour now that it knows I'm leaving.
Too late pretty Montreal. You were too hard on me.
I'm small, I only talk big. You were hard on me.
Cold and dark and mean.
But now I walk the plateau every night while
dragonflies play over the pond in Parc Lafontaine.
Two days in a row of bliss
Bliss that reminds me how good my life is.
smokin a joint in Parc Lafontaine.
And the rush of joy that swept over me
at opening a greeting card from my lover that reads,
"I'm soooo fucking in love with you!"
And get me to tell you about my troubling newfound love for Montreal.
It's like Montreal is on best behaviour now that it knows I'm leaving.
Too late pretty Montreal. You were too hard on me.
I'm small, I only talk big. You were hard on me.
Cold and dark and mean.
But now I walk the plateau every night while
dragonflies play over the pond in Parc Lafontaine.
Two days in a row of bliss
Bliss that reminds me how good my life is.
6/03/2007
The History Eraser Button
Imagine my dismay at turning on my cellphone to find that all my text messages have been wiped out. Inbox (0) Outbox (0).
Over two years worth of dirtysweetlovin communiqués are just gone. I'm heartbroken. The wintry morning greetings on the Scarborough LRT, the sultry summer night kisses, the occasional gems from my closest of friends, the countless I love you's, the endless you're beautiful's, the misspellings that made me laugh out loud:
"im head over heals in love w u my queen."
Oh my heart.
Texting's become a way of speaking that I've loved getting used to. Each message window a place of performance; every line an opportunity to excite. How to write porn in 160 characters or less.
Yeah sure, ephemera and all that. Satellite signals, digital dispatches—brief, faint and insubstantial. Text messaging is a fire-and-forget medium. But maybe that's why I'm so disoriented, a sensation I could never have expected. Erased now are moments that had already been forgotten.
But I do remember this: for a few days last summer I needed to leave my phone 'in the shop' and I'm sure whoever worked on it peeked into my Inbox. Who wouldn't? I liked to pretend that whoever they were got a pleasant surpise at finding dirtysweet flirting between two hot chicks who are SO freakin' hot for each other. And I secretly believed that—having read hundreds of messages without a single meanspirited word—they went home that night and turned their marriage around.
Over two years worth of dirtysweetlovin communiqués are just gone. I'm heartbroken. The wintry morning greetings on the Scarborough LRT, the sultry summer night kisses, the occasional gems from my closest of friends, the countless I love you's, the endless you're beautiful's, the misspellings that made me laugh out loud:
"im head over heals in love w u my queen."
Oh my heart.
Texting's become a way of speaking that I've loved getting used to. Each message window a place of performance; every line an opportunity to excite. How to write porn in 160 characters or less.
Yeah sure, ephemera and all that. Satellite signals, digital dispatches—brief, faint and insubstantial. Text messaging is a fire-and-forget medium. But maybe that's why I'm so disoriented, a sensation I could never have expected. Erased now are moments that had already been forgotten.
But I do remember this: for a few days last summer I needed to leave my phone 'in the shop' and I'm sure whoever worked on it peeked into my Inbox. Who wouldn't? I liked to pretend that whoever they were got a pleasant surpise at finding dirtysweet flirting between two hot chicks who are SO freakin' hot for each other. And I secretly believed that—having read hundreds of messages without a single meanspirited word—they went home that night and turned their marriage around.
6/02/2007
Saint Viateur Streetfest...
...amounted to some dude playing a fiddle outside the BioTerre Organics supermarket. I suspect the fair was long over before I got there. A few deflated balloons fluttered from a chainlink fence and sweet autumney woodsmoke tinged the latespring air with meloncholy.
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