Small Bumps

Last night while trying to fall asleep I again thought about the land my childhood home rests on. Our house was on a hill, not a big hill but a hill nonetheless. The houses at each end of the street are on more or less on flat ground, but those in the middle of the street are on an incline or a decline. The hill is gradual and rarely represented much of a challenge except maybe when in the back of a wagon or on a skateboard.

Our house was on the top end of the hill, where flattening out became obvious. Our neighbours to the west had steep slopes in their backyards, and their houses were obviously lower than ours. At both sides of our property there were small changes in elevation, each lot basically was its own piece of level-ish ground. The change in elevation started very subtly at the road and gradually became more pronounced as you moved toward the back of the lot.

At the western edge of the driveway where it met the gentle curve of the curb something happened, at least I think it did. At the road, the change in elevation was very subtle, standing on our driveway maybe put one four or maybe six inches higher than someone standing 3 feet away on the neighbour’s lawn.

Here is how it all went down.

D was a neighbour across the street and was a grade ahead of me in school. D had a jackknife; I think it might have been new. P was a classmate that lived a few doors down. She was small but athletic (certainly more than I). D and P were playing chicken with the knife. D stood on the corner of our driveway and P stood on the neighbour’s lawn. D threw the knife at P and she ducked or weaved to avoid the knife. Once P couldn’t avoid the knife and it hit her, just above the eye. There was blood and crying and general childhood pandemonium. In the end P was fine and D was sorry.

where it happened

Did this really happen? I think so but I am not sure. If I think about the details I have described they seem as plausible as they are incredible. D was a nice enough kid, not prone to violence or meanness particularly. I don’t remember a remarkable recklessness in D’s character. P was a cautious kid, not one prone to irresponsible acts and risk taking.

When did this happen exactly? How old were we? I think before we were in high school but how much before I am don’t know. Did parents get involved? Were there meetings between D and P’s parents to discuss what happened? Did my mother know what happened? Did she talk about it with us? If I knew the answer to these questions once I don’t know them now.

I think it did happen. I can’t say why or when or what happened afterward but I know where it happened. There is a place that I am sure exists and something happened there, a place where if you weren’t careful you could scalp the lawn with the mower.

coming soon

honestly

Before now

Falling asleep I remembered something from my childhood, a small bit of geography.

 I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I was 20 years old.  After I moved out on my own my mother continued to live there for another 15 or so years.  This house was particularly ordinary, completely of its time and place. A middle class home in a middle class neighbourhood in a subdivision of a city that is neither big nor small.

Our house was built in 1964, 3 years before I was born.  The house sat on a large lot, not huge but by today’s standards it was large. It had three bedrooms, a finished basement and a patio door onto a patio, not deck, a patio. 

my very small big brother stands on our front yard

The particular piece of geography or rather topography was a depression, one that ran from the south east corner of the front yard in a diagonal across the lawn.  It didn’t cut the lawn in half, but rather divided it into two unequal parts.  The depression started just behind a Mountain ash and bent around the base of the tree as it made its way toward the road.  It curved slightly again, in the direction of our neighbour’s driveway, but continued more or less on its path toward the road.  It petered out before it ever reached the curb. 

During most of the year, this slightly meandering, longer than wide depression went unnoticed.  In the summer it provided a mild distraction while mowing the lawn.  In the autumn, you noticed it while raking the leaves of the Mountain Ash, and its neighbour the Norway maple.  During the winter the snow drifts might reveal that the ground underneath wasn’t completely flat, but you would need to know what you were looking for.

In the spring this depression became something wonderful, at least to me. Every spring as the snow melted,  water would gather in the this smallest of valleys.  A tiny, temporary stream mere feet from our family room window.  The sight of this pleased me and captured my young imagination. I secretly loved this little body of water, no matter how fleeting and it made my yard and house feel special.

Somewhere along the way, someone (I imagine it was my father because I can’t imagine anyone else telling me this) told me that the mini valley likely reflected a real stream that now flowed underground.  Imagine that! An underground stream.  Seems that babbling brooks had no business cluttering up the landscape of our suburban neighbourhood and the developer had “buried” the stream before our house was built.

This knowledge made me love the little dip in our yard even more.  A stream running underground toward the river that existed a mile or so away.

I may have bragged to my friends about the little stream that was and wasn’t, but I don’t recall.  I don’t recall talking to anyone about it after learning the underground secret. I vaguely remember a makeshift bridge made from a toboggan, but I can’t be sure about that.

I think about the same time that I learned about the buried stream, I also learned that our neighbourhood, on the northerly ridge of a large ravine, had been an apple orchard before the houses were built. Streams and apple trees.  Little roads where trucks laden with apples made their way.  In the centre of our next door neighbour’s backyard there was a large apple tree. I guess it was spared the chainsaw when the orchard became the place where I grew up, its location must have pleased someone, so it stood.  I never knew it to bear anything but small wormy apples, useful for throwing and attracting yellow jackets in the autumn.

My mother lives somewhere else now.  Not far from the house with the little buried stream she lives in a new condo.  Behind her condo is a real stream, with real bridges, water that flows, reeds and fish.

I live far from my mother and my old house. I visit her, and think I should pop by the old house and look at it.  For some reason I rarely do. When I do, I never stop the car, just slow down and look.  Next time I should get out of the car and walk over to the little depression, maybe stand in it and think about what was before and what came after.

R and R and Eating, sleeping, theatre….

Heading out of town for a little while.  Looking forward to spending some time in small town Ontario and seeing a little family too.  We are breaking up the drive by spending the night in Belleville, that’s first. Then swoop into Toronto for the briefest of visits then on to Stratford.   Happiness.

A little guilt about leaving the old gal on her own, but given her behavoiur of late we all need a break apart.

People are getting angry about the weather.  I will agree that it has truly sucked, but I remain ever optimistic that things will improve and we will have a fabulous fall.  Wedding plans are shaping up, which has lessened the stress.  Wasn’t really aware of how stressful it was until we got the location resolved.  So unaware these days.

Not feeling particularily inspired to post but felt it had been awhile.  I will post from Ontario with sites and sounds (maybe), if I can get the mobile wordpress thingy working.

Off I go to pack the car!

What does it mean?

When you have a dream involving hybrid corn and Madonna?

Doing it Differently

Betty Boop at Carte Blanche

Back in Montreal, back to work.  Spent the weekend here actually, which was good even if the weather wasn’t. It sucked actually, sucked bad.  Saturday was either extremely humid or pouring down rain. Our little plan to go see the drag queens was a bust. 

We had some friends over which was fun, but it felt a little same same.  We were hoping that the drag extravaganza might have broken up the monotony, but it wasn’t to be. Sunday the weather was a slight improvement, enough that Paul and I could wander the village and see the sites. We spent a long time waiting around for Deborah Cox, drinking persecco and beer, which was actually fun, waiting around I mean.  It was about all I feeling up to as my neck and back were severely out of whack.

Dancing Figure on Sign - Plateau

Yesterday we more or less took the day off (yeah Ontario! you set a good example again!).  We spent the morning at the doctor’s getting checked out, nothing more serious that our annual physicals, but we now HAVE A DOCTOR!!!!! in Montreal, which by all reports is a coup.  We already have the results of our blood and pee analysis and all seems fine, phew! 

The rest of the day was spent doing errands and taking care of things around the house.  Today it was back to work. I did do something I have been meaning to do for a while, after work I went to Parc LaFontaine and sat on bench and read.  Lovely.  The first bench I found was a little too close to a car with an alarm that was going off periodically.  I moved along and found another spot.  Here there was an elderly man playing with a remote control boat on the pond. Now I would like to say that he was a hobbyist, navigating his hand hewn replica of some famous ship amongst the ducks, but no, this was a toy boat, a crappy toy boat at that.  This is the kind of toy that even an hyperactive six year old would feel a little ripped off to receive.  Oh well the old guy was having fun.

I went and watched some people play boules (or pétanque) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9tanque.  At first I marvelled at how such a french activity had taken root in Quebec, thinking wow these people are really trying to get in touch with their Gallic roots. But as I listed the the three groups playing, one was a bunch of anglos, one was clearly from France and the others, well who knows cause they played in silence.

The other noticeable group activity seemed to involve groups of women, generally more than 5 and fewer than 10. I saw three groups of women using the park to their advantage.  The first group I have seen before, they are a fitness group that move around (jog) the park. Periodically their leader will have them stop and do something, say jumping jacks, or she will have them run sideways for a while.  They all run with yoga mats strapped to their backs. The second group appears to be a yoga group, they hangout behind the theatre and do yoga in a circle.

The final group are slightly older than the first two, mostly in their 40s and 50s.  This is the first time I have seen these gals.  Today they seemed to be standing in a loose circle patting themselves on the head and laughing forcibly.  I watched for a moment and realized that nothing was particularly funny, that they were in fact forcing themselves to laugh, or at least sound like they were laughing.  After a moment their leader told them to stop.  She said something  that I missed and then they started up again, patting and “laughing”. 

I read my book on the far side on one of those benches

Every time I go to the park I love it more. I don’t go there enough, and when I do I am often running or ”doing stairs”, it is hard appreciate it.  Today I simply hung out and it was great.  Car alarms, crappy toy boats and laughing ladies, I love it all.  When we ever decide to leave Montreal for good, this is something I will truly miss.

The days are getting shorter, I am going to be out of town lots this month,  I need find a way to spend more time in the park before it gets too cold.  On my walk back home, I thought about my snow shoes and how I didn’t use them once last year.  This year things are going to be different.

Toronto Street Art

Sticker on Queen West West

Found some nice examples of street art in Toronto. Here is one of my favourites.  It is near Queen and Dovercourt on the side of a building (alley wall).  I am digging the weeds (oh dear) that are growing at the feet of the deer.  I wonder if the artist put this here on purpose?  Did she or he have the time to scope out just the right place before installing it? Or was it more of a stick and run.  I guess it is easier if you are working with “stickers” rather than stencils, less time to be noticed.

Walking around keeping an eye out for examples of street art I am noticing things I would have otherwise missed.  Perhaps it isn’t always a matter of perspective (where you are standing) but purpose (what you arelooking for) that reveals.

Toronto Nostalgia

A little strange bit of sadness found me on Saturday. 

I love my friends, I feel a connection that seems to withstand time and distance in a way that I imagine other people don’t.  When I encounter old friends it feels like we just pick up where we left off. 

On Saturday in Toronto we attended the 40th birthday party of a friend. There were a few old faces in the crowd, people I consider close friends, people I miss.  Now the party was lovely and upbeat and I was in a great mood, small talk is not something I find to be a drag.  People reveal a tremendous amount through small talk if you listen carefully enough.

Near the end of the evening an old friend came in, someone that was a key person in my life for a long time. It was great seeing him and although we didn’t chat long, there was no awkwardness, no distance, just happiness. Paul and I were heading out so my friend and I made tentative plans to meet the next day.

As I was leaving the bar, saying my good byes, it hit me, this strange little feeling somewhere between anxiety and sadness. Now initially I thought this feeling was the result of percieving a distance between me and my old chums.  But I didn’t feel that.  I felt the old connection.

As we hopped into a cab my mood continued to darken, I tried to explain to Paul what was happening, but what came out of my mouth sounded wrong.  I couldn’t articulate it because I didn’t know.

Now a couple of days later this is how I can describe it; a little bit of the sadness that I felt the day we packed up the car and dropped the keys off at the lawyer on our way to Montreal hid itself away. On Saturday seeing my old dear friends it sort of popped up. It was like I was leaving Toronto all over again, even though I left Toronto nearly two years ago. I felt anxious and nostalgic, like that cab was headed down the 401.

strange

More Stencils

Zebra on Rachel

Saw this bit o art on Rachel street just east of St. Laurent. I wonder why there is only half a zebra?  Did the artist get lazy and couldn’t be bothered with the back?  I wonder if it is supposed to be turning the corner and it was just badly placed.  Oh well I like it and was happy to find it.

I found it on my way to lunch with my friend Daniel.  We went to a restaurant called something like pattit patate?  Food was quite good actually and the place had loads of charm. A great mix of french and english speaking locals with a few tourists mixed in.  I am starting to think that St. Laurent is the most diverse street in town. Seems like where all parts of Montreal come together, old and new, english and french, tourists and locals.

The next stencil was found this morning on St. Christophe in the Village on my way back from the gym.  Not sure if it is as effective as the zebra but I have to give the artist credit cause they used more than one colour.  Not only is it technically more challenging but I would think it takes more balls to stand there with multiple stencils and multiple cans of paint hoping not to get caught and have to abandon your work before it is finished.

Figure on St. Christophe

 

I like the 80′s look of the figure, androgynous, skinny tie, lots of air in the hair.  Maybe because I spent the end of the eighties in Montreal it appeals, not sure.  The non gender specificity of the work is appropriate for the village too.

We head to Toronto tonight for a few days then Paul is off to the west coast while I return to Montreal. I will keep my phone / camera handy to grab some Toronto stencilling.

first mobile post

this is harder than it Should be. maybe I should get a life