Tornlake

Wet Garden

I dug my fingers into my garden this morning. It was wet, cold, sloppy. Like a drenched dog that just swam a river. Not quite ready yet for much of anything.

The above analogy was partially stolen from the Toronto Star gardening columnist Sonia Day. But I liked it so much I decided to embellish upon it and use it for my own devices.

Ms. Day advised against taking a rake anywhere near the garden yet. The roots of perennials and tender shrubs are too near the surface, and the soil too wet -- they're liable to brake and get torn up by the rake. But she said I could use my hands, so that's what I did, raking with my fingers to move the soggy old leaves, twigs and bits of detritus from around the base of my bedraggled perennials and naked shrubs, picking out stones and odd bits of garbage as I went.

To my utter delight I discovered the translucent heads of daffodil shoots nosing up through the surface of the soil. They're that newborn lime-green colour. The colour of vulnerability. I'm terrified for them and praying they'll make it. If a soft little stem of cells and water can crack a roof of heavy soil and withstand the wind, sun and rain, then maybe there's hope for me too.

Bloor Subway, St. Patrick's Day

An eight or nine-year-old boy of South Asian descent is sitting with a middle-aged woman, presumed to be his mother. Across the subway car from them sits an elderly man, caucasian, wearing a well-worn Toronto Maple Leaf's cap, and holding a blond wood cane across his lap.

Intercom: This stop is Christie, Christie station.

Boy: (Reading sign on platform wall as it speeds past.) Krissthy. Krissssssssthy. Krisssssthy station. (He looks at his mother.)

Mother: Krisssthy. Right.

The boy adjusts his square-framed glasses. He sits on the edge of his seat as the car pulls away from the station.

Announcer: The next stop is Ossington, Ossington station.

Boy: (Again reading the sign on the platform.) Osssssingthun.

Mother: Osssingthone.

Boy: Osssssssssssingthuun.

Elderly Man: (Smiling) Ozingten.

Boy and Mother: Oooooooohhhhhh.

Happiness Tips

... over at Looking For Space. 'Nuff said.

After the Fall

If you believe the frequently alarmist media, modern society is on its way down -- the economic crisis being just the latest chink in the armour.

A friend of mine tipped me off to the photo essays of Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. Each essay chronicles the mouldering of once important structures.

One essay depicts the empty buildings of downtown Detroit, many of them once grand and beautiful. The abruptness of their desertion is apocalyptic. These scenes show a city abandoned rather suddenly -- no time to collect the furniture.

Another essay shows abandoned old theatres in the U.S. They were once the focal points of culture -- high and low -- in America. They too were deserted almost fully intact, right down to the ropes. The same is happening in Canada, as Cineplexes stamp out old neighourhood theatres.

What I find extremely interesting is the conversion of many of these theatres to churches. The places where people went to see all manner of debased entertainment -- sex, drugs and violence -- are now the places where people go to renounce. What a coup.

All of the essays show the artifacts of a ravenous and rabidly industrial society -- one that creates and consumes its empires in mere fifty-year spans.

Another Day at the Office

Sunday night, Queen West, across from the vastly more popular Terroni's (pricey if you ask me), I'm being run ragged by a party of 20 at the small Indian restaurant I serve at. They all shout out drink re-fill orders in no particular sequence, yet they want six separate cheques. Six!

None of them have ever been servers. In fact they're all stage actors -- a couple of Jersey Boys, some Guys from Guys and Dolls. A quiet stage manager and his quieter girlfriend look me up and down like they're expecting me to ignore them because they're not as loud as all of their actor friends. I do. But only because they look at me that way.

There's an infinitely understanding foursome at the only other available table in the restaurant. Two older couples in jeans and hand-knit sweaters. One man in a vintage poor-boy cap and arty glasses. The woman who does the ordering smiles at me like I'm her daughter and I consider sitting on her lap for a minute, but instead I go to the bar and start preparing six coconut martinis, with a single single-drink shaker.

The door alarm beeps and I look up from the sink. A 20-something, broad, dark man ambles through the restaurant at a weirdly relaxed pace. He seems to be sauntering, strolling as if through a park, but he doesn't look at anyone he passes.

I come around the front of the bar. 'Can I help you?' I say. He looks through my head at something I can't see, then starts speaking so quickly, and with such antic inflection that I can't make out what he's saying.

It takes a tenth of a second for my hackles to raise -- it's clear from his body language and the vacancy in his eyes that this guy is not looking for take-out. I'm not frightened, but my muscles tense so I can react if necessary. 'Can I help you?' I ask again.

He reaches over the bar and retrieves a pair of scissors. My hand thrusts out to take them from him but he moves his arm from mine -- the only indication he is aware of my presence at all.

He separates the blades by an inch, then raises them towards his lips. I reach my hand towards them again, but he turns from me and begins to speak into them as if they were a walkie-talkie. I relax a little, releived he isn't about to harm himself. The entire restaurant is watching him.

'Something mumblemumble the holy spirit! The goddamn holy spirit man mumble mumbleshit.'

He turns back to me, replaces the scissors, and asks for a cup of hot water, "by any chance?"

I tell him I can't help him here and to go to the Salvation Army down the road.

"Something mumbleJESUS!"

He turns and strolls out of the restaurant, the same relaxed ambling pace. So casual it makes me feel as if I'm the one in another world, where nothing makes sense most of the time.

I go back to my martinis.