Author: carin

fogs i have known; one i have loved

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

You’re driving in the pea soup of the Yorkshire moors, certain you can hear those puppies of Baskerville at every turn—not that every, or any, turn can actually be seen—and then, after some miracle of finding the way back to where you’re staying you hear the news that the roads in the moors have been closed all afternoon due to especially bad weather. 

In Newfoundland, you sit on the rocks right at the edge of the sea with a picnic dinner and a bottle of wine, when out in the distance, over the water, comes a mist. At first it’s pretty, ha ha, you say, look at the pretty mist… But you’re from Ontario and you have no idea. You think you will continue sipping your wine, that the mist will just stay where it is, but then you notice it’s moving or, more accurately: ominously marching your way. In seconds it travels what appears to be miles, obliterating the landscape as it goes. Poof!  Now you see rocks and trees and ocean. Now you don’t. And you can’t help thinking you’ll soon be next. You grab your picnic and head for the shelter of your B&B, which is much further away than you’d like at this point—and The Thing continues to come. The air is suddenly icy and within moments you can see nothing. It’s like being invaded by some silent invisible army. You sit on the porch, grateful for your wine, because if this is the end of the world at least you have that. Later, in the B&B, you tell the lovely owners about this extraordinary event and the way they look at you… well, you have never felt more like you’re from Ontario.

The ferry from Victoria to Vancouver. It’s your first crossing and you’re lucky, the ship is almost empty, you can sit where you like. You look forward to the view; you’ve been told it’s spectacular. But boo, there’s heavy fog. For a while you worry how the ship will find it’s way, you become tense and slightly pissed off about the non-view. But then something about all that nothingness turns comforting. The world seems bigger somehow precisely because you can’t see it. You write and sketch and take hazy photos. You don’t even like boats but sailing through this cloud is one of the most relaxing things you’ve ever done...

mad weather soup stock

~ carin ~ 1 Comment

Includes snow-covered celery.

This, thanks to erratic temps. Plus ten one day, minus twenty the next. Rain, snow, heatwave, snow. The poor plants haven’t known quite what to do. Up, down, die, live?  It’s been all happy confusion. In fact, until recently I was still [amazingly] snipping the odd bit of greenery—arugula, parsley, thyme, celery leaf.

Alas, I think the foraging party may be over. Seems the gardening season has finally, officially, and abruptly, come to some sort of pause.

condoronto

~ carin ~ 6 Comments

Once upon a time there was a place, a kind of delightfully welcoming hole in the wall across the street from the ROM, where you could get a couple of spring rolls, the best BBQ pork, greens, a bowl of soup and an endless pot of tea for not much money. So you’d leave a huge tip because the owners were so amazing and lovely and even though the place was always crowded with regulars, and you only went in a few times a year, they knew you, remembered what you liked, were all smiles as you walked in. As if it hadn’t been half a year.

The decor was mostly red with magic marker specials that never seemed to change on sheets of bristol board stapled to panelling. There were jars of soy sauce and chili flakes and plastic roses on the tables, the kind that look wet—the first time I saw them, fifteen years ago, I thought they were real. That was before I had a good look around.

We were there a few weeks ago and found a handwritten sign in very bad English taped to the door. The place had closed. The sign said they hoped to re-open sometime. Somewhere. They didn’t yet know where. (Have since googled them and found they’ve moved to a whole different part of the city, a whole different city in fact… )

So sad to lose places that give character and sweetness to a neighbourhood. And how ironic that it’s precisely these places that are part of what draws people to wanting to move there, yet the very act of moving more people in forces the charming places to move out.

Oh Condoronto, whatever are you doing?? (Fun fact: there are more high rises/condos being built in Toronto than anywhere else in North America.)

I’d be surprised if a year from now there’s even one restaurant left in this neck of the woods (or many others) that has anything resembling plastic roses with fake water droplets and people who shout Hello! and remember, even after six months, that you like the pork lean and always with baby bok choy.

Whatever they build, they can’t build that.

half moon morning

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

Walking in the light of the half moon I see a rabbit dart across my path; I’ve disturbed its breakfast. And over by the fence, a small commotion as I come through the spruce. Fox, raccoon, coyote, wildebeast?? The neighbourhood stray named Cat, perhaps? I dare not look too closely, turn my face upwards instead, toward the moon, clear and bright in the still dark sky—I’ve recently learned that it has the same willingness to please as the night’s first star.

And so I issue a little request: please, not wildebeast.

things i saw

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

A little girl, maybe three years old in a puffy red paisley coat and checkered pants—fuchsia and green and purple—yellow boots and a pink floppy hat, rosy-cheeked and chattering, skipping alongside what might have been her grandmother, and I think how this beautiful ensemble, like kid art, can only be created before the opinions of all the wrong people begin to matter.

A homeless looking man with long greasy hair and enormous shaggy grey beard, dirty face, torn, greasy coat, sits on the floor of the library looking through a box of magazine discards; he pulls out all the Home and Garden, gets comfortable and flips through each one.

A guy in black lycra or something similar, running on the sidewalk in bare feet. True, it’s been unseasonably warm here and no one’s bare feet love sunshine more than mine but, at the very least… ouch.