watercolours

ice, whiskers, books and light feel

Left that place early and walked east along Sherbrooke in the sunshine, absorbing a week's worth of vitamins. It had warmed up and then it cooled right back down and so the snow melted into streams and puddles and then stopped suddenly in it's tracks. It was that perfect kind of ice, crystalline and brittle and translucent on the verge of opaque. Every puddle cracked so nicely and I thought about how children are probably happy because they know how to get their satisfaction without thinking too hard about it. And thinking about that I meandered along and tried to open my eyes wider and not let one stranger catch me scowling. We exchanged a knowing smile when you almost slipped and I took big deliberate steps to protect against the same. I listened to music and looked at the colour of bricks on buildings when the sun hits them like this at this time of day. I walked through the park and then got to the place that sells the healthy cat food. I used my French and talked about you, Mooz. I took a different way home and saw things a little bit differently. I looked into your window and it was chock-full of books and when I walked inside it smelled so good. There was a grey and white cat sleeping on a stool, there were books that looked a thousand years old, there was a box of original prints and the words all around were mostly French but there was that one shelf that was full of English. And it was full of what seemed to be carefully selected and lightly read novels. Mostly for three dollars apiece. I looked and found and wanted several of them, but I thought about money and all of the other things I also need to use it for, and so settled on four. But the wild-haired, bearded, bespectacled man at the counter informed me he took cash only. Shucks. Well I will put one back. Is there tax? Maybe I will put two pack. No tax today. Gosh, you are very kind. So leaving and then walking, I caught up to the one other patron who asked me in French if I found anything interesting in there. And I did! And we walked together and talked about books and neighbourhoods and discovered we are neighbours. And we said goodbye and then I came in to your purred greetings and lovingly cleaned up your little messes. I continued to think about this day and how nice that sunlight was and how good it feels to walk around smiling and feeling good and actively opening up my heart and just seeing how that feels.

Woke up today and something had changed.

Woke up today and something had changed.

Followed my breath to work, passing once-puddles that were shattered like car windows.

Walked quickly and lightly, as if having finally found my sea legs after weeks of semi-stumbling.

I thought clearly and openly, looked longer at each thought and thought "hmmm," but never drew any conclusions.

I thought of Moozimah who is fiending for that catgrass, knocking over dishes in the middle of the night in an attempt to climb an almost-storey to reach that new treat.

I drank two big cups of coffee after three weeks of having hardly any. I felt it course through my network of veins, felt it pull at my chest muscles and squeeze the air out of my lungs. I felt the rounded edges of my orb-like eyeballs twitch and shiver and I thought, I better eat some vegetables.

My brain hummed along, mostly quietly for eight hours.

I walked home, chasing my breath. No music now, just cold air coming into my brain and still the thoughts are moving along slowly. Like there is something in there that I should be looking at. Like the weather changed overnight and my brain must catch up. Like Moozimah knows a secret and whiskertickles me as I sleep saying with her eyes as she ruffles her mane, "look."

Hmmm.

excited feelings about:

• the onset of fall and the emergent hues


• the giant Dragon Tree and the tiny Spider Plant that will be new additions to the single sill of my little apartment


• the idea of dolphins, diving birds and medium fish, and their frenzied cooperative feeding


• meeting a brand new human being in approximately four weeks


• hammerhead sharks


• the prospect of being paid in art supplies


• the oncoming education in human synergistics


• a new Bill Bryson book


• developing eleven rolls of film, spanning many moons


• seeing Wilco on Sunday in the evening


• replacing the boggle battery and upping the competitive ante in our vocabulary battling


• familiarizing myself with all of the acceptable Q and Z words in Scrabble


• squash and beets and baking bread


• saving dollars and going places


• learning more and more about the universe through watching dear Moozimah mature into a fine young lady cat

that was early may

A while ago. Took a cab home with Tarif, who talked to me through the rearview mirror as he drove slowly down St. Denis and then talked some more as the lights at St. André changed from red to green about twenty times. Said a lot of things and laughed and looked me in the eye and spoke honestly about things that people don't tend to say. His eyes were twinkly and his teeth were large and yellow and he turned around maybe twice but mostly it was through images that he said,

• education here is meaningless


• there is a book of spirituality where he comes from, which every scholar has to read and we have no equivalent here


• Montreal is becoming and Americanized city because of our obsession with money


• people aren't good here intrinsically, but because they are afraid of the consequences of bad behaviour


• no one expresses their aggression and that is unhealthy


• all the natural food is gone from the world


• this is the closest thing to communism


• there are smart people out there, but why aren't they using their knowledge?

Thinking, these kinds of conversation don't happen with everyone or anyone and how a man like that needs open ears and eye contact and to sit in a cab for thirty minutes after arriving at the destination and the meter isn't running and just let me tell you one more thing and everyone needs to be heard sometimes and I need to have more faith in myself too.

just dream of the lofty pines

Sweet summer long weekend brings good things all around. Scavenged wooden chairs with wicker seats unravelling, not the comfiest but so nice to look at, and okay so twelve earwigs rode in on the legs but now they are squished (I am sorry bugs but you aren't meant for this inside world).


Lazy evening heat still lingering, sitting on the mexican blanket in the big park in the dark. Those bottles are pop not twist and the kindness of strangers opens them up and we empty them while sharing rude slang and learning some new words and giving advice about this city that we are lucky to live in. Peek at the fireworks which peek out from behind trees way down at the water. Seeing only the ones that shoot up high but still gasping quietly my oohs and ahhs and remembering all kinds of things.

Keys locked inside and busting through the screen window. A confused cat, frame bent out of shape and hammered back straight, clothes hanging on my bicycle, the heat and laughter and understanding everything.

In the morning, the heat, the creaking, the sweating, laughing. Couple of weirdo gomers slow dancing to Suzanne in the doorway. Leave me smiling all day, you do.

seeing the pleiades riding on taurus' shoulder

If I had $95 to $200,000 to spare, I might buy a ticket for a seat on a sub orbital flight into space. A brief look at earth's curvature and some minutes of weightlessness. You can do that these days, if you have those meaningful pieces of paper in bulk.

A while ago I came up with this question that is somewhat character defining to my judgemental mind: Given the chance between a week in outer space alone or six months in Europe, if money had no bearing, which would you choose?

I would love to give my mind the added dimension that an insider's look at inner space would. Being in space instead of pondering it as an outsider from thousands of lightyears away (or below or above or within or without or whathaveyou). Think about how that would change your mind!

Space makes my mind breathe in a different way because it forces a broader frame of reference, or maybe takes away any kind of knowable frame. It makes my cluttered mind want to do some spring cleaning, to sweep out the corners where the petty thoughts linger, gather dust and end up characterizing my daily thoughtlife. I want to know space and to obtain a sense of unfathomable distance, size and real emptiness. Of lightness and darkness, of time collapsing.

If you said Europe, then I don't know...