The streets are slick with rain and a thousand yellow Maple buds paint the asphalt. I remember your ridiculous yellow slicker but I don’t remember the trees. It was always night when we roamed the streets. Your wallet chain jingled as we careened down the mostly silent sidewalks, our Doc Martins making hollow thuds. I used to watch my feet when I walked to make sure I didn’t step on any cracks. You thought that was hysterical. You told me I’d knock myself out on a lamp post if I didn’t look up. But you always reached out and steered me out of harms way, even while you cackled at my superstitions. My mom used to do the same thing, steer me by the elbow. One day she let me walk into the mailbox to teach me a lesson. Did I ever tell you that? She said I only learned by doing. There’s a name for it. “Experiential”? I don’t know, it might be that but I make up words all the time. Sometimes they’re pretty good; words we need but that don’t exist. Like “phantologue”: a conversation with someone who is no longer present in your life, not necessarily dead, just MIA.
8 min @ Sublime Espresso, Kensington Market, 5.10.13
dip source: a sign on the counter
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