It's late, almost 12am, and I'm sitting on my front porch watching the riff-raff roll by in their cheap import knockoffs, their harley's, what have you. It's quiet, mostly.. maybe one car a minute but you can always hear the hummm of an engine or the grind of a gear somewhere off in the distance. The clink of metal on metal is coming from the water where the sailboats sit sleepily in the harbour and, whoops, there goes a shooting star. rock, burning up in the atmosphere. funny to think about.
Some asshole just drove by in their cavalier, i think it was, blaring some rumbly bass music I couldn't care less what it is. They were cool, though, cause they saw me on the porch - probably the only soul out of doors up here on the eastern promenade at this time of night, and they tossed a can of beer out the window. So now for the last ten minutes it's been sitting there in the middle of the road. The way the streetlight is lighting it up it looks like an old box of chinese take-out and no matter how much I pound my brain with it - beer can, beer can, beer can - it looks like chinese food until, whoops, someone drove by and now it's rattling down the road, pushed by the wind, rolling up against the curb. Looks like a can of beer now. Yup, I think it's a can of beer.
Now each car that drives by is enough to give it another push and it rolls a few more feet down the street. Maybe by morning it won't be on my block anymore. Maybe.
I'm looking around - at the porch, the rotting wood at the junctions of the railings around the edge - at the dull shine of the double-yellow lines running down the middle of my street, my promenade. I'm looking out at the water which, even though it's not much more than a few hundred feet away, shows up in my eyes as a big black area. The far off lights of houses and car headlights make the edge up so I can put a shape to the blob but the wind is light, there is no waves tonight, and the ocean - at least here - is quiet. I'm looking at all the cars parked out on the street, the same cars I see everyday.. neighbours cars, their girlfriend's and boyfriend's.. I'm looking at my car, my little honda sitting there staring back at me as if to say "Why? Why yah gotta do this? Why yah gotta leave. Look at this place. Look how it loves you."
The Prelude somehow embodies this place and speaks for it and I sit here, looking out at the world from the tiny perspective and I feel guilty.. Guilty that I'm leaving what is now home. Guilty that, after living here for three years I'm leaving it like a bad ex, going for greener pastures, and quiet frankly - I may never be back again.
And all of it - the guilt, the sadness, the memories, the fun, the crazy schedules, the relaxing moments - it's all okay, really. Like anywhere I've lived it becomes a part of me, defines me, and for ever more will I own this place in my mind. Ten years, twenty years, it won't make a difference how long it takes - when I'm back here some day I will know these streets and know these trees and know this air as I know it right now, here, on this front porch, getting bitin' by August mosquitos.
Saw some pictures on the montreal city weblog. old photos of the city, with recent pictures for comparison.. Then I happened upon this one of the Eastern Promenade from a long time ago. Again, puts things in perspective somehow..
Things change yet somehow, weirdly, they stay the same.
Came up with a plan, in my head tonight, like I often do.. one of those sneaky little plans where you surprise someone with a gift or a visit or a new idea... where you bring home a pizza that isn't expected or you call someone half-way around the world on their birthday - they pick up the phone to hear a voice they don't recognize from so far away, it takes them a few seconds, they stutter. "Oh my god, I didn't realize it was you.. oh. wow.. What's up?"
Came up with a plan and this one I can carry out because I know where I'll be when the plan must start. I know who I can recruit to help me with my plan and I know, for the most part - it could go one of two ways - it will work out wonderfully and I can sense, from here on this tiny little porch that looks out at the atlantic ocean that spreads out towards five continents that spreads out to the whole world that spreads all around us, I can sense the reality of this plan. Intuition, like.
Intuition, in all my time as a human being here on this little earth, has treated me well. I haven't always listened to it and I haven't always had the faculty to hear it but when I've noticed what it's putting down, well, it's got some truth in it. Intuition on this plan of mine is saying good things. I like to hear good things. I'm listening.. intently.
Truth be told, though, every once in awhile it is wrong - like it got some messages crossed or didn't have all the information it needed. Sometimes it isn't enough just to feel like it will all be alright, sometimes you need to make it be alright and, unfortunately, sometimes it's just not alright.
I'm not sure this one is going to be alright.
But at the very least my plan is alright and it's going to be the best I've had in awhile. Maybe?
See what I'm saying?
No?
Maybe later.