Things Toronto Taught Me: Part Deux….. or Trois…..

So today I re-started my blog which I had inadvertently abandoned in favour of starting a Twitter business, moving, and getting a new job.  Okay, so the “move” was a 30-minute walk away from my other place, which I stayed at for about one night a month, but still.  I moved.

I got an e-mail that people liked my last post, so I’m gonna post another.  Just like that, you get more reading material.  I can see this becoming cyclic….. and I’m okay with that.

One category I forgot about was my “Things Toronto Taught Me” segment, mostly providing an outlet for my frustrations of society in the biggest city/metropolis/megasuperexpansivethingy in Canada.  Yes, Spell Check, I realize that isn’t a word, but thanks for providing it some colour.  Gahh, I’m in Canada, Spell Check — colour is supposed to be spelled with a “u”!  I digress.

Today’s submission of factoids and junk I learned in the big T.O.:

  • Winter doesn’t really start until the snow sticks to the ground….. and that surprisingly won’t happen until the end of December (if then).  In Niagara where I grew up, we’d have snow right at the beginning, and a few weeks full of lake effect winter before Christmas arrived.
  • The sickest people in the city will always ride the TTC.
  • The ones hacking up a lung will always choose the seat next to you.
  • Some people are immune to winter.  This becomes especially evident on Friday and Saturday nights, particularly in front of clubs with long lineups.
  • This will always make me giggle to myself, and snuggle deeper into my sensible coat, double-mittens, and an awesomely fuzzy hat (if I can ever find one).
  • Uggs were not invented by Canadians.  At least I doubt it.  If they were, well I’m stumped.
  • Scarves better not go out of style.
  • What few animals there are in the city get dumber as it gets colder.  Today we almost ran over a squirrel who stopped in front of us and pretty much could have written the tunes for his own funeral by the time he realized he should turn back around.
  • It may not be winter, but it’s pretty flippin’ cold to me.
  • Swans must be pretty smug in the bird world at this time of year.  Okay Toronto didn’t teach me that, I just thought about it now.  But they’re probably all like, “I’m a swan, I’m white, nobody can see me, squawk squawk squaaaaaaaawk.”  Of course their honk is annoying as heck, so they’re probably just as much of a target as usual, just, you know, smug-er.

Um, so that’s all I have to say about that.

Stupid smug swans.

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Mud (December 2006)

who would have known?
back to the drawing board…..

rain surrounding
a puddle of mud
where I lay
helplessly shamed
melancholic and merciless
I tie these beams
strength in hands only
unaware of hope
open to nothing
I’m not well
and I sang too much

under me lies ground
unfamiliar and true
the incubated sadness gutting me
sidles up and winks
such a jerk
and buries me in splashes
as he passes me
slamming fists in the mud

Copyright L.M. 2006.

A Word of Grace (December 2006)

it’s in her style
paths of words streaming
seeming
beaming
their peace upon us all
as we sing out delight
at the voice in our heads
perhaps mouthed in pain
or wreathing
or the simple hurt of breathing
barely there and yet
a final stanza’s set
forgiving all we weren’t

unopened in the eyes of many
sitting all alone
in waiting and impatience
wondering at such
use of passive tense
for not all eyes can see
splendid verbose beauty
but sit here we

gliding fingers highlight text
whose passion rises ours
left only to second-guess
whose life personified
yours or his
hers or mine
ignorant of time
and so it settles
her adorning mind

    

    

Copyright L.M. 2006.

(My sister had a different interpretation for this poem when she read it; she thought it was about the Virgin Mary….. have another read and you might see why she, and I now too, can glean that meaning from it…..)