Architecture to stretch out in without scraping my fingers on roughly green glass walls. There are no mountains to hem people in here, no ocean to swallow their gaze completely to the exclusion of culture. I blend in. In Vancouver, I stand out in the street as something odd to look at. It’s like a weight lifted, all those people looking elsewhere. I don’t feel like a bare gallery of this hat, these clothes. Instead, beautiful pieces of public graffiti sprayed onto the brick skin of buildings a century old reach out to me and remove weight from my shoulders.
My trip to Toronto is confirmed: I leave on Monday, Dec 19, at 6.15 on train #69.
I return to Montreal on Friday Dec 23.
I’m living with James at Sherbrooke and St. Laurant. It reminds me of the first time I lived in Toronto, when my apartment was at Queen and Spadina. There’s a similar sense of being exactly in the right place downtown to properly chase dragons. It’s like Sigur Ros is playing underneath every creaking step I take on snow, lending me magic and grandeur. Tkch, tkch, tkch. Everything is dusted white. I don’t pad around here. It’s impossible. My feet are encased in big clunky shoes. My feet are clumsy. My feet are walking somewhere they’ve never been. Every curb is a cliff leading down to some improbable country where I’m glad I don’t know the language.
Yesterday, like the day before, I walked for hours. I haven’t done anything yet, but I’ve seen.