Inspirational words can be found everywhere in this city. Sure, some are more poetic than others, but they all help in times like these. These are the times when times are like these. These are the times when you suddenly feel old because you feel like you've been floating forever. But floating down the street, or floating into a dimly lit washroom, a stranger's words suddenly make you feel like everything is going to be okay.
Today my fortune cookie said "Just be yourself. You are wonderful."
A weekend away from the city on the city's busiest weekend is full of a drive into the country and the tallest and the greenest trees and air that you almost forgot existed. It is suddenly feeling the way this song sounds and thinking your fortune must be right.
It is also wishing you could find nail polish that matches the colour of your mom's flowers.
I've been biking down tree lined streets (and not into even one bush!) in Tokyo. I've been grocery shopping in Montreal in the prettiest dress I have yet to find. I've been walking up walk-ups in Brooklyn. I've been drinking in Berlin and drinking coffee (as if!) in Paris. I've been falling in love in London. And I've fallen in love with Tokyo and Montreal and Brooklyn and Berlin and Paris and London and wherever else my dreams settle for a day, or two.
But this past weekend, it was impossible to imagine, or want to be, elsewhere. This city finally felt like mine again. We crammed ourselves into the corner of a favourite patio and drank as the sun set and drank some more after that. We braved the rain and celebrated streets the best way possible (through our taste buds, of course). We shook our fists at that rain and danced instead. We reunited at every street corner. We danced some more. We brunched and recapped and explored new streets that made me feel like I was visiting this city for the very first time and falling in love all over again. And we topped it all off with 1/2 mint and 1/2 oreo gelato.
So how can I go elsewhere when there are roots here. Roots that are strong and deep and wrap me up in the most perfect hug when I begin to think elsewhere could even ever be possible.
Toronto, you are such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl.
Saturday, sitting on our deck in too little, it felt like the sun and Elton were shining and singingjust for me. The sky was so blue, and if there was a cloud up there, I didn't see it. In that moment, everything seemed possible, and today, it still does. I hope this feeling lasts.
How do you describe an entire country in a few photos and poorly placed together words? It's a rather daunting and ultimately impossible task, and not one I will undertake here. All I can say is this: to me, during those two weeks away, Japan was a country composed of order and politeness and beautiful bluegrey draped shirts and high heels always and okonomiyaki and onigiri and crowds and bows and everything cute and green everywhere and lots of beauty and as I descended into Toronto the sun was streaming hard through the windows and I looked out and saw my favourite skyline below and it looked so small it didn't seem real but it was still beautiful in a different sort of way and even though I was glad to be back and even though the sun was streaming so hard, I couldn't help but let a tear (or two) land as the plane did as well.
My computer decided to give its last dying breath as soon as I returned from Japan. Perhaps it was the jet lag clouding my almost always too present emotions, but I didn't feel much of anything when that constant black screen greeted me. I did not shed one tear or even show a trace of anxiety when my cousin said the dreaded words: "I'm going to have to format it." Maybe it's because everything that really really mattered (photos and essays) had been backed up long before in the fear that this day would eventually come. Either way, I felt only calm as I carried my four year old baby on my back, down the street, onto the subway, across the city, and down another street into the dreaded house where all this said formatting was about to go down. I patted it once before my cousin whisked it away to perform the deed. It was suddenly my Marley but I was no Owen. I ate tacos and shared photos from Japan instead, and forgot why I was even there.
And now my baby is back. It may look unphased and unchanged, but it's faster and smarter than before. And although I appreciate these improvements and the reliability they bring with them, I now feel so distant from it despite the four years spent together. Gone are the 4000 songs that were the soundtrack to years 19-23. Gone are the conversations that lasted late late late into the night.
But even though these losses may make my Marley a stranger to me, they also make me fully and finally finally free from the past. Technology can have a strange and unexpected grip sometimes, and I think soon, any day now, I'll come to love my baby again.
Inspirational words can be found everywhere in this city. Sure, some are more poetic than others, but they all help in times like these. These are the times when times are like these. These are the times when you suddenly feel old because you feel like you've been floating forever. But floating down the street, or floating into a dimly lit washroom, a stranger's words suddenly make you feel like everything is going to be okay.
