Under clear blue skies, heading over the tracks, looking back on metro life through open eyes. Which is where I’m going wrong – everyone else is viewing it through smartphone eyes.
Across the city in a repeat performance of yesterday, for a day spent watching things I don’t understand going around in circles. And this time I’m paying for it.
Motor racing around Exhibition Place, zooming around the parkland and past the Victory monument.
In Thunder Alley is where the revolution starts – at the army recruitment stand, where the public are left to crawl all over everything that moves.
Fittingly, Thunder Alley is also where the dark clouds gather.
When heavy weather arrives, we need to head inside – immediately. The instruction becomes more and more urgent, and has to be repeated multiple times over … evacuate all outside areas now … incoming thunderstorms … evacuate all outside areas now.
The party’s over, so I escape to the path beneath the underpass, to be greeted by an unexpected art scene.
New Monuments for New Cities: a passage transformed into a testament to the transition of life itself.
Floating above the rocks, holding aloft messages we shouldn’t need to be told; striking a pose in green, elegantly loaded in a penthouse condo, darkness lurking overhead.
As heavy showers continue to pass through, I dive into the fort library, where they may well overwhelm us today … and no-one would ever know. Silence please!
We’ll only be found out when we need to re-emerge into daylight – at 5pm sharp, when the building closes.
Back outside, nevermind bikes … where’s a canoe when you need one?
Central downtown deals in extremes and opposites, especially so on a hot and humid summer night.
The streets crowded with theatre-goers and bar-crawlers and family groups out for celebration meals, chatting and giggling and laughing while wandering past the forgotten on the sidewalks holding aloft their own signs.
I attempt to reconcile the things I’ve seen with a beer at the bar with toast and yeast butter. Sat in Aloette, simply because someone told me to – possibly Justine at Full Beard, Timmins.
Roasted lamb sirloin, chanterelle mushroom, eggplant, chickpeas, mint and me … like we all know how to converse with each other, like we’ve met before.
In Toronto tonight, everyone minding their own business, lost in thought / lost in translation.
An Outside World 