i decided this summer i'm getting my G1 and my ears pierced
thirty going on sixteen, baby!!!!!
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“or maybe to wear / Glasses. If you discover one morning you are a drug addict / or an alcoholic,”
Hello:
The house knows we're leaving. The earth is taking it back. The garden’s a sea of weeds; they ripple in the breeze, nature being like nature, it’s nice. Yesterday I moved a rag out from under the sink and water immediately started pouring through the basement ceiling. The mould under the bathroom tiles is spreading. The air conditioning is wet like the breath of someone you don't want in your ear at a party. Faint whiff of gas when you walk up the front steps, something musty when you come downstairs. The couch on the front porch has bees living in it - the whole thing belongs to them now. The creeping vine from the neighbours' garden has started reaching its tendrils up, up, around.
Our landlord is a real estate agent. We don't see her very often; her husband is the one who comes and fixes things, usually while watching a video about how to fix them very loudly on his phone. She only comes over once a year, for the cheques. The story I always tell about this house is that the bathtub was dripping through the kitchen ceiling and they didn’t want to fix it, so my stepdad came over and we ripped out all the old caulking and tried to redo it ourselves. One of the tiles was cracked and water was going through. When we lifted it up we found a hole in the wall that someone had attempted, years ago, to plug with a single yellow rubber glove. Nothing else.
This summer there are pictures of our landlord's face on bus stops all around the city. The first time we saw one we were biking back from a beautiful house we would not end up living in. I was balancing on the curb, waiting for the light to change, Carlo behind me. Next to us was a church that had been turned into condos; across the street there was a lilac tree in full fresh technicolour bloom. I was having that thing where you feel absolutely certain this is the first time you have ever experienced spring, where each new type of flower makes you feel like someone is shooting a beam of electric light directly into your chest. There are a lot of stupid things about this city; the leadership, the institutions, the systems, the behaviour those systems encourage. But in spring you cannot argue with the raw material. I was staring at this tree thinking it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life, and then my gaze drifted to, underneath it, our landlord's face. As tall as her body, at least. Cream blazer, black background, gold letters, big smile. I said Hey is that…..? and Carlo said No, no way, it can’t be, it's gotta be someone who looks like her. Long pause. And also has the same name. That was a month and a half ago. I barely even notice the ads anymore. Like how quickly you get used to the green everywhere, until you can't even remember the landscape without it.
On Sunday I went to the beach with Doro and Carlyn. We stopped at an enormous Loblaws on our way there. My shirt was sticking to my back after pedalling for an hour in the sun and it felt perfect inside the store: bright air, just cool enough, full of people and yet still possible to walk down whole aisles completely alone. I was browsing the chips and feeling a sharp hit of nostalgia for the feeling of grocery store on a stoned summer day, when it’s art gallery community centre TV show and place of worship all at once. The sight of the roped-off aisles made me sad, like always. But also, for the first time in a year, I thought: It seems possible. Not immediate. But possible. In the parking lot there was a sign for the vaccine clinic and while we were unlocking our bikes Doro said you know what, I bet you’re eligible for your second one now.
Hours later, coming home, we biked back along the lake. The sunset was just starting to turn things orange and pink and blue. Cool breeze, water shining over water like a mirror. Iridescent, I kept thinking. I took my time on the railpath. When I got home I was covered in sand and my hair was so thick I couldn’t get my fingers through it and there was a round patch of sunburn on my thigh. Doro was right about me, as always. I looked up clinics and made an appointment, the very last one they had, for the next day.
When the time came I thought I would walk, but it turns out I’ve forgotten how long it takes to get anywhere so I took the subway instead. My first time in 15 months. There was almost no one else on the train with me, but I stayed standing anyway. I only had to go a few stops. My body rocked back and forth with the turns exactly the same way it has done for decades; I made no effort at all. It felt like when you come home after a long trip, like a full year in another country. The memory of your life settling into the fact of it, their edges almost lining up.
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Support the 9-year-old boy orphaned by a hate crime in London, ON this past weekend
The Kamloops Aboriginal Friendship Society is building a new Friendship Centre to provide community care and affordable housing to Indigenous elders, single mothers and families; donate if you can.