here, and there

~ carin ~ 6 Comments

 
Walking in the woods isn’t quite the same as it was last week.
DSC05570DSC05553It’s hard to tromp about today and only marvel at the beauty and stillness and fresh earthy smells.
DSC05558The early flowers and birdsong. Tra la, tra la.
DSC05543DSC05586I heard a story on the radio this morning about a woman from Fort McMurray who lost her wedding dress in the fire.
DSC05559I thought how trite. A dress?  Why is this a story?

I made my breakfast as I listened. Eggs, toast, tea.
DSC05562The woman explained how friends had posted about the dress and people from all across the country offered her a replacement. How she chose one from Toronto, where she’s getting married tomorrow on the island.

There was nothing trite about her tone. She was a woman who’d left her home at a moment’s notice with cats and dog and rabbit and who somehow made her way to Toronto where she was now on the radio, stunned at the turn of events.
DSC05577And all she wants is what anyone would want… for things to be normal.

And that, I thought, is where the dress comes in.

Because our normals may be different things and we may not immediately recognize each other’s version, but I suspect the dress is hers and how brilliant that, in the face of everything else that is such madness, she’ll be able to get married in something that makes her feel that maybe not all is lost.

Even though she said she could just as easily wear a tee shirt and jeans.
DSC05563And so my walking is different these days because of how I’m thinking about those forests over there and these here, the same, yet not, and I’m thinking about nature, generally, how we’re nothing against it, and the nature of people too, the kindness of strangers and the need for anchors in our lives and how they’re so often what we least expect or even imagine.
DSC05571 DSC05572And I’m thinking about the woman and the thousands like her…

…here, and there. So many ‘theres’.

DSC05560

So.

Happy wedding on Toronto’s Centre Island, stranger from Fort McMurray…

And welcome.

We’ll be raising a glass to you.

 

♥♥♥

Information on how to help residents of Fort McMurray (or receive help).

Donations made through the Red Cross are being matched dollar for dollar by the Federal Gov’t.

 

 

reel life, fer real

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

 
When you’re driving after dinner along Queen West in Toronto with friends from out of town,
DSC05499and the whole time they are so excited
DSC05500about showing you a music video supposedly shot in New York but which is really Toronto because look there… look!   they say (more exclaim than say).
DSC05501And they point to a dot on the screen where there’s a flash of orange Beck taxicab— they go back a few frames in case you missed it
DSC05502and then a building,  See that building?  They rewind again and you turn again to face the backseat, you squint at the screen and they say, all kinds of proud, that they recognized it as Toronto the first time they saw the video.

The very first time.

They say again how much they love Toronto. They just love it.
DSC05505The cab comes up in the video again and then a hotel interior — is it the King Eddy, they ask. The Royal York? It looks like an oldy worldy hotel hallway. We shrug, we have no idea. We sleep in our house.
DSC05507And so it goes, for the entire journey along Queen amid all that hum and drang, sturm and thrum night time light show… past a million faces and a full moon… all you’re looking at is this tiny screen with recurring flashes of Beck taxi fender… and that building… the one that isn’t in New York…

Because they love Toronto!

And isn’t that what you love to hear.

DSC05509All of this to say…
DSC05511that none of these pictures were taken on Queen Street.

rolling

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

 
I have a thing for graffiti.

DSC05431

It feels like compressed expression.
DSC05425Or maybe I mean repressed.

Like there’s so much more to say.
DSC05423

Too much for available public space.

DSC05432

So it’s done in this amazing code.

DSC05429

The messages there, clear as day for anyone to see,

DSC05428

…at the same time hidden among the chaos against those who can’t.

DSC05421

savoury sentences from several sources, part 4

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 

“On her lapel was a gilt brooch large enough to be a small sculpture.”
—’The Things You Know’, Lemon Table,  by Julian Barnes.

**

“Why is it that in every relationship a dismal moment arrives when one’s lover suggests the seaside?”

—‘Little Bird’, Oh, My Darling, by Shaena Lambert.

**

“Omens are for example hearing someone say victory as they pass you in the street/ or to be staring/ at the little sulfur lamps in the grass/ all around the edge of the hotel garden/ just as they come on. They come on at dusk.”
—The Beauty of the Husband,  by Anne Carson

**

“If you are offered a plover’s egg as a snack, that, too, is taken with the left hand.”
—The Finishing School,  by Muriel Spark

**

“It was a time when people didn’t ask as many questions. That was the time it was.”

—Martin John, by Anakana Schofield

**

“…vanity isn’t fussy; it’ll eat almost anything.”

—Boy, Snow, Bird,  by Helen Oyeyemi

**

“…he yearned to be in love with the sort of woman who would fall for the kind of man he pretended to be.”
—Savage Love,  by Douglas Glover

**

“I found myself more interested in the dialogue I’d stolen, and wondered if I was better at eavesdropping than writing poetry.”

—A Year of Days, by Myrl Coulter

**

“There is no box to check for not wanting a box at all.”

—‘The Rest of My Chest’,Gender Failure, by Ivan Coyote

 

 

More sentences here 800px-thumbnail

and here.

And here.

it’s a spring thing

~ carin ~ 5 Comments

 
Every year I’m surprised by how much I miss my parents on this particular holiday more than any other. Surprised, I suppose, because I’m not prone to this emotion generally, but on a sunny Easter day I miss driving to their house in a slightly warmer part of the province where the forsythia are often in bloom while snow lingers in the shady bits of my own yard. I miss sitting on their patio, listening to stories about their life long before I knew them and how they’d correct each other, argue, decide the other might be right after all.
I miss walking on the beach with them on this first spring weekend and my mother finding wild rosebushes and making a note to come back in the fall to pick the hips for tea. Just for a day, I miss the smell of her kitchen with the windows wide open.

DSC05314