A Brief Survey

There’s the hill down to Grenadier Pond, where the signs prohibit tobogganing, but really stop no one at all. There’s the smaller one north that pulls in the sakura crowds. Hawk Hill, by the restaurant, is for the birders; and east is where I caught the last of the park’s soapbox derbies. Vomit Hill is Julie’s name for the end of Spring Road and the effect it has on some runners, and that stretch past the zoo was once called Half-mile Hill, though it’s barely a fraction that long. But, hey . . . you did ask why they call it High Park.

Inspired by hill in The Parallel Eclipse. Photo of another hill in High Park from the City of Toronto Archives.

The Parallel Eclipse

The sky grew dusky as the eclipse approached, though we would not experience total blackness. To the south, a seething dark mass indicated the path of totality. It blossomed into pitch and the light where we were dimmed ominously—at which everyone gasped as one.

     I wonder about that moment of shared uncertainty, our collective vulnerability to forces beyond rational perception. An eclipse of sanity is upon us, a global psychosis embodied by neo-cZars, by autocrats, quislings, anti-truth denialists, and bulbous ballcaps. All eclipses pass, and so will this—unless we close our eyes.  Unless we blink into their madness.

Inspired by Moony Monday, our other eclipse pieces, and the zeitgeist of our times. Photo by the author.

Old Cardigan

Near the end, she was always cold. Her body fought so hard to keep her breathing; it had no energy left to keep her warm. Her last days were spent wearing her favourite cardigan and under mountains of blankets. A cold rot had taken root inside her, she told us. And with blinds open, she chased the sun around the room with her eyes, turning her face toward it. We would have moved her bed into its warmth if we could have. Now, as I write this, her cardigan is draped over my chair just in case the weather turns.

Inspired by Be In the Sun. Image by Bing.

To Be In Sun

Her afternoon was nearly done
Now on the chair
Comfort there
To be in sun
To be in sun
Remembering when
She was young
And just begun
As if this world
Were new again
As if the truth
Were years away
Almost there
Though alone
She was taken
Almost home

Remembering when
She was young
She had a plan
There was a woman
She was trying to be
There was a place
She was trying to see
But too far away
Too far alone
To be in sun
To be in sun
As if this world
Could be good again

Inspired by Moony Monday. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Moony Monday

So often, I talk myself out of doing things. It’s too far, too expensive, too much effort. But on Monday, we spontaneously found ourselves riding our bikes to Billy Bishop chasing a flight to Montreal for the path of totality.

When the bright moon entirely eclipsed the sun in the dark sky, what we beheld left us utterly speechless and humbled. We sat frozen, agape.

We had to jog back to the airport to make our flight home. Out of breath, we cantered along Boulevard Bouchard. 

We felt young and full of life, holding hands, and laughing about our adventure. 

Inspired by this week’s Corpses’ reflections. Image from Google Maps.

Forget Déjà Vu

Want proof that we’re living in an elaborate simulation? Look no further than the Moon.

     For a start, if it really did form at the same time as our planet, it’s much bigger than it has any right to be. Furthermore, they say, it once orbited way closer than it does today, and is moving away at a rate of 3.78cm per year. And yet, here we all are, living in that thin slice of time where twice every year, the Moon precisely eclipses the Sun and, this is the important part . . .

     They tell us not to look too closely.

Inspire by 100% FOMO. Image from The Matrix.

100% FOMO

My astronomer-pal Steve tells me that viewing the eclipse in Toronto will be underwhelming, even at 99.8% coverage, but we choose to stay home. Because we like to stay home. Instead, we will find a quiet place to witness odd shadows and the weirdness of discombobulated animals, and watch the sun disappear over us. Will it be total twilight? No. Is missing the Big Event just another step in the slow march of my B+ life? Possibly. Will we be happy to just listen to the birds and frogs, rather than marinate on the QEW with the others? You betcha.

Image courtesy of Xavier Jubier.

The CanLit Premise Generator

Yes, there’s such a thing, which produces such surefire Giller-winning plotlines as:

• A group of writers learn to salt cod despite an absent father.
• Two dogs cannot finish their novel after an awkwardly verbose prologue.
• One of the Eatons tersely contemplates their provincial identity, after being blinded by wildfire smoke.
• An old woman tries acid at a concert but in a Little Mosque on the Prairie kind of way.
• A lonely widower smuggles rum in an RV, barely escaping the weather.
• A wife journeys to the center of Algonquin Park despite an absent father.

Perhaps we are a too-predictable nation.

Inspired (or frightened) by the rollout of AI. Image (and generator) at the CanLit Premise Generator site.

Bugs

Early spring Monday morning, listening to the news,
trying to expand my knowledge
when I see an Asian lady beetle
striding along my window ledge.
Pretending to be a ladybug but it’s not
Just another non-native infestation
The red army’s at the ready
having spent all winter in preparation.

If there’s one scratching on your face
you know there will be a thousand soon.
Crawling behind walls, on curtains,
beneath dustbins they loom.
Be kind, do better, touch grass
and more platitudes from the on-line preacher.
Sure, in a minute, but right now
it’s time to feed the vacuum cleaner.

Inspired by Spring Rituals. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Letter to the Editor

I walked by St. Casimir’s yesterday and was reminded of Palm Sunday. In my early 20s, I denounced my Catholic upbringing. My ultra-liberal mind uniformly decided Catholicism was bad for women. Few things in life however are that black and white; most are grey with a ton of nuance. Religion can provide structure and settle an inner unease. It is rich with parables of reflection and wisdom, even richer when not infused with a sting of shame. Those congregating on Roncy after Mass always look entirely jovial. But maybe it is just because Mass is over; how I remember it.

Inspired by the Corpse’s recent newspaper theme. Photo by Wendy Whelan

Pack 33 Cubs Enjoy Hike

FANWOOD—June 1970—My mother sent me off on an afternoon hike in the Watchung Mountains with a bunch of other scouts from Pack 33. It was a big enough deal that I might just remember a little of it, but not nearly as big of a deal as getting my name in the paper, which I do not remember at all.

     That it was even reported is remarkable enough. That we can now search these archives online still amazes me. But the most astonishing thing of all really warrants its own headline:
     Newspapers.com Junkie Discovers His Name Spelled Correctly!

Inspired by Birds my Mother Knew. Clipping from the Scotch Plains/Fanwood Times—July 9, 1970.

Birds my Mother Knew

In the continuing effort to unearth Lauretta’s gangster moll past, I revisited her wedding. She’d married Presbyterian on a Tuesday and to an empty chapel. Just Barney and her, and two people I’d never heard about: John Cismus and Jean Johnston. Once I started digging, I hit sketchy straightaway. The Best Man, a 23-year old petty criminal, had a string of crimes including theft, smuggling, and assault. But it was when he was arrested for running a brothel that we meet someone named Jean. She was the whorehouse’s Weather Eye. She was the Lookout, alright, just not for my mom.

Inspired by Spring Rituals. Clipping from The Windsor Star, March 15, 1946.

Spring Rituals

I knew I was in the wrong job when a month into my (very short) stint as an editor with Chatelaine, I heard a colleague talk about Spring rituals. Her mind went to pedicures. Mine went to birdwatching. In fact, soon, we’ll drive two hours to Long Point, on Lake Erie. And we’ll park at the edge of a farmer’s field, stand out in the wind, and watch at a very long distance through binoculars a white blur of tundra swans, pit-stopping their way north for the summer. They look majestic. They honk majestically. It wouldn’t be Spring without them.

Inspired by Spring. Photo by Nancy Kay Clark.

A Bright and Future Home

Songs of a bright and future home settle in
Are these shores reachable beyond the beckoning of war drums and convulsions of paroxysmal gods?
May we not be sullied by malignant stains nor reach for transient temptations
This time may we accept grace
May we anchor in safe harbour
Here, pain is tempered; we are healed
Here, we lay our foundations down
Here, here and here are where we grow, let our roots entangle, branches entwine
Every spring is a spring to relearn the lesson
Hate buries the hater
We only rise through love
And everything that rises will converge

Inspired by Be Still. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Be Still

In her four walls, mortality whispers in her ear. Moments are ever fleeting. The child she was is gone. The young woman from oh so long ago, she still wants to be. The regrets swirl. It is her own private torture chamber. But then, she steps outside into the early March morning. Frosty white roof tops steaming, robins whistling. Air cool and fresh.

The sun is peeking through the semi-barren trees, warming her eyes. She walks, into the woods, and inhales the intoxicating smell of new muddy earth. The four walls of her mind collapse around her. Presence is everything. 

Inspired by March Approaches. Photo by Andi Edwards.

Mrs. Eva Doughty

In 1908, Eva and James Doughty, purchased a brand-new house in Parkdale, just off Roncesvalles Avenue—$2850, $800 down. They moved in with James’s son, Howard (from James’s first marriage) and their two-year-old daughter, Melba.
      Although the family followed James south in 1915, to a new job in Cleveland, it seems Eva never really gave up on Toronto, because, by 1939, after renting it out to a string of year-by-year tenants, she was back in the house, her house now, listed in the City Directory as the widow of James, even though he was very much alive and living downtown.

In the years that followed, she would open that house to her far-flung family and uncountable lodgers—her only child, her dear darling Melba, after the second divorce—her elderly mother, Emma, when running her own household became just too much—her granddaughter, Barbara, when she was busy getting her own family started.
      Mrs. Eva Doughty lived to 101. There’s a picture of her in the Toronto Star, celebrating her 100th birthday. She lived in that house 50 years.
      Eva and I aren’t related, but I wish we were. Our only connection is that I now live in her house.

Inspired by Les 18 (1898-2024). Photo of Eva (left) with her 100-year-old friend, Nellie Sims by Mike Slaughter.

Les 18 (1898-2024)

Les deux Marguerites, vieilles belles sœurs 

Les deux Thérèses, plein de bonheurs 

Léocadie sauvegarde à nos racines 

Suzanne prend bien soins à sa poitrine 

Ma Tante Alice, en plein aire 

Était devenu la bonne chasseuse 

Ma Tante Eileen, la malheur si proche 

Vécu en vie de grandes douceurs 

Ma Tante Marie, Mère secondaire 

Ma Tante Simone, tenait ma Cœur 

Rolande, Fernande qui prient toujours 

Envoient le Seigneur ses laine nounours 

Gentille Madeleine, la femme qui rompe 

Bluffant Lillian, la femme de trompe 

Jeanne, Yvonne, les peu connues 

Yvette, si jeune pour sa perdue 

Finalement Anne-Marie, rossignole-ardu 

Toutes Mes Tantes ont disparu

Inspired by Anne Marie Leclair Armstrong, 1935-2024.
Photo: Mes deux grand-mères, 1954.

March Approaches

The month of March makes its entrance like a thirteen-year-old who doesn’t know how to brush or (dare I say) wash his hair or even how to move. Messy, dishevelled, awkward, unpredictable. Cool one day. Too hot the next. Full of bravado. Always uncertain. He’s easily hurt and quick to lash out, but also equally quick to forgive and melt your heart.

He sheds his skin overnight and grows it anew in the morning. He is alive with possibilities and hope and energy. I breath more deeply in the early Spring and feel more keenly the change all around us.

Inspired by flipping over the page on my wall calendar. Image by Copilot Designer, prompted and edited by Roy Schulze.

Promised Land

Ricky’s twenty one and Jackie’s nineteen
but she’s done things he’s never dreamed
She’s got a devil’s smile, angel’s lips,
she’s drawing blood just swinging her hips
She says, “Boy, why don’t you tell me what you’re needing.”
He laughs but his heart is already bleeding.
She says, “I’ll show you something you don’t want to miss.”
He says, “You can have my soul for just one kiss.”
So she pushes her mouth to his
And she takes him by the hand,
takes him by the hand.
She takes him in her hands
And brings him to the promised land.

Recycled, and upcycled/inspired by Deep Thoughts. Photograph by Fred Ni.

Deep Thoughts

Dear Bra,

     I remember when we first met. You were thrust upon me in shame. Society could not bear the nipples of a pre-teen. But our relationship blossomed, and we became inseparable, wire tight.

You introduced me to Victoria’s Secret and encouraged me to be the biggest version of myself. I introduced you to hordes of fumbling man-hands. We went on to have countless escapades together.

     We snapped ties over the pandemic, and I let you go. Bouncing from place to place and brazen at the office. Soon to realize society could neither bear the nipples of a mid-life woman.

Inspired by Dear Diary, Well Spent, Seinfeld, and Jack Handey. Photo by unpict.

Well Spent

Remember that part in Flashdance where the blow-torch lady is talking to the guy she likes, and while she’s talking, she’s taking off her bra without removing her sweatshirt?
     Of course you do.
     But was that in the trailer? Or maybe in one the clips they took to the talk shows? Because I don’t have any memory at all of actually seeing the movie, but I sure do remember telling my brand-new girlfriend that I didn’t think she could do it, and she bet me a dollar she could, and then she did it, and I had to pay up.

Inspired by He’s a Maniac. Image from wikiHow.

Dear Diary

Chris and I sit in an Ottawa bar and read her old diary from 1976. At first with theatrical angst, but then more thoughtfully. Here we are nearly fifty years later, older but immutable pals. I love that we’re here together, and that she had the foresight to bring a pen so that we could add a postscript to the story. I scratch out a paragraph alongside that girlie writing of hers. For a laugh, we write like we’re thirteen, leaning heavily into our words so that they press through the page, ghost writing our message onto the next day.

Inspired by He’s A Maniac. Photo of Christine’s Diary by Laurie.

Travel Hygiene

Things are different when you travel. Firm standards become fluid. Take laundry. A seasoned traveller avoids it entirely. A shirt you’d never wear two days in a row at home can easily last a week on the road. Change your socks, certainly: on Day 2, wear the left one on your right foot, and the right one on your left. A third day is not advisable — just stop wearing socks. Or underwear. If you must wash clothes, a cursory rub with hotel soap will suffice; use shampoo for stubborn stains. Then hang it all to dry without blocking the view.

Inspired by Travel. Photo by the author.

Picture This

We drive along Lakeshore, passing by the garbage-strewn encampments and cracked pillars under the Gardiner. We turn down the New Cherry St. and over its just-opened bridge. He points to where the experts are carving out a new mouth of the Don to protect us from floods, and where, next year, the parks will be, and the new marsh (for the overspill just in case). They’re building in fish habitat and chimney swift nesting logs. They’ve got native plants going in — manufacturing a wetland to replace the larger one our city founders destroyed in their wisdom and drive for modernity.

Inspired by Grasslands. Inspirational illustration by Waterfront Toronto.

Grasslands

Paint a picture of the grasslands
Take a photo of the soul
Over ritual plains and rivers
Heavy winds are this way blowing

Running with the storm
Climb quickly to the highlands
Because the sea, she will come
At the end of this long day

Send home your sighs and wishes
Send home your fruits and sun
Remember all your days here
Remember every last one

You surrender nightly
On a road not taken lightly
You will travel with Her
To the end of this long life

Into the fold of Her embrace
With thine own body
Come find grace


Inspired by Travel. Photograph by Fred Ni.

He’s A Maniac

It was a still and grey afternoon. Perfect weather mood for a Saturday matinee. We left the theatre jacked to put our moves into place. That’s what Flashdance does to you. It started to sleet as we crossed the parking lot of Fairview Mall.

A man was approaching us in a trench coat. We noticed him but didn’t “see” him as we tried to croon the lyrics to Gloria. He trotted by our diagonal, halted, opened himself up and exposed his hairy bits. A flasher. Perhaps he saw the movie too and came out with a different kind of feeling. 

Inspired by St. Clair West. Image from Flashdance.

St. Clair West

We seemed to be hitting it off, so I offered to get her home. All I really wanted was to extend the evening a little, a walk through the snow, and maybe enough time to screw up the courage to kiss her goodnight. 

She lived past that middle-of-nowhere entrance to the St. Clair West station—a long way from Yonge, but then she had said she liked walking. And I don’t know why, at the door, I declined her invitation; nor, given she’d just asked me in, why she turned away as I kissed her.

     I took the streetcar home.

Inspired by La Vache Qui Rit. Photo by Evan Schaaf.

La Vache Qui Rit

Back in my card-carrying PETA undergrad, I played a rainy-day game called “Splash the Bunny”. I’d drive my Dodge Dart dangerously close to someone wearing a fur coat and tsunami the hell out of them.

But why? Was it rebellion against my French-Canadian roots? Or because my dad trapped muskrat and raised greyhounds for the Florida circuit? Residual guilt over that kippered bathmat that was once a Reitman’s fox jacket? I don’t know why I did these things, but I did, and afterwards I’d sink my sophomoric arse into our leather chair and chew a cheese sandwich with quiet complacency.

Inspired by Snow, Slush, and Honour. Photo by Laurie Leclair.

Snow, Slush, and Honour

Sully was running late for an 8 A.M. That was the thing about beer league, you took ice time when you could get it, even 10 P.M. He was still annoyed about the game. A guy had snowed his goalie. Sully’d levelled him for it. You never snow a goalie. It’s against the hockey code of honour. 

      Sully was late. He sped up. The road was messy. Slush had pooled everywhere overnight. He whizzed past something colourful and glanced back in his mirror. It was some doofus with a rainbow umbrella, shaking his fist at him. Sully burst out laughing.

Inspired by Beneath the Snow. Image by Bristolpost.co.uk. “Snowing a goalie” is this.

Beneath the snow

New snow covers all sorts of eyesores—garbage, dog poo, the debris of life littering my yard, general dilapidation. A wonderful façade until the inevitable southern Ontario thaw and freeze, thaw and freeze. By early March, the old snow has solidified into chunks of black guck at every street corner. Then, forced to see this mess and ugliness, I feel the necessity to clean house. I can’t ignore anymore what isn’t working. It has to go. I seldom make resolutions, but when I do, I don’t make them in the New Year. I wait for the clear light of Spring.

Inspired by Fifty Words for Snow. Photo by Cristian Bortes.

Fifty Words for Snow

It had been snowing again when I fell asleep, then some hours before dawn I was awoken by a bright light. Maybe a car had pulled into the driveway and one of its headlights was shining in through a window. I opened my eyes and saw, instead, the swollen moon casting its light over a field of snow-silvered grass.

I got up, slid open the patio door an inch. Cold air. Months later, life would again push out from the earth and unleash its cacophony, but at that moment, I listened to the night’s frigid silence and counted to fifty.

Inspired by If Only. Photograph by Fred Ni.

If Only

If only we paused Netflix and took ten minutes to clear that measly strip of snow, so our elderly could walk.

If only we didn’t treat our streets and parks as giant ashtrays, so our children and pets could scamper and play.

If only we picked up our dogs’ excrement instead of pretending we didn’t see it, so our new neighbour to Canada didn’t ruin a pair of winter boots.

If only we ceased judging each other from our front windows and addressed our own hypocrisies.

If only we could all be nice. That would be different. Let’s be different.

Inspired by Be Nice. Image by Nick Fewings.

Be Nice . . .

With the house came an extra sixteen feet of responsibility I hadn’t anticipated—not after years of soft apartment living, insulated from the rigours of the Toronto by-law that compels landowners to clear snow from the sidewalks in front of their property.

The city plows the streets, sure—often pushing snow back over the curb—still we must guarantee a safe passage for our fellow citizens no later than twelve hours after the stuff stops falling . . . or do as I do and follow the forecasts in the hope, that if no one disturbs it, it will melt on its own.

Inspired by tonight's oncoming storm, Ben Wicks, and this commercial from 1985.

You’re Not Funny . . . You’re just a Nudnik

“Horseshit” was dad’s word. Mom, with her Enfant-chien-de-merde preferred her own strangely compounded French. My Detroit cousins cursed in Yiddish, and although I didn’t understand a word, it was funny and I wanted in. So, I tuned into The Tonight Show and boned up on Shecky Green and Don Rickles. Finally, over a holiday dinner, I tried my routine on the Goldsteins. Raising my milk while hoisting my own polyglottal pétard, I shouted “Uncle Al, you’re the biggest schmuck around!!!” Schtum. So much schtum. And that’s when I learned that Context and Timing were the two pillars of comedic vulgarity.

Inspired by Salty in Certain Circumstances. Image by Chris W. Bissell.

Salty in Certain Circumstances

Dad was not one for salty language. He dropped occasional mild blasphemies and a scatological term of German origin in moments of crisis, like when he did carpentry. Otherwise “Aw, hell,” was as coarse as he got, “hell” being acceptable, him not being a churchgoer. When Platoon premiered, he claimed to be appalled. “Soldiers don’t talk like that,” he assured Mom, which was striking, because I’d served in the reserves and knew how soldiers talked; and he’d been in the army all through the war. He definitely knew the richest, most expressive Anglo-Saxonisms. He just chose not to use them.

Inspired by Get Out of Bed. Image by Chloe Cushman, National Post.

Get Out of Bed

Hearing is muffled after a blast. Saturated by bright flames, your eyes hurt and you shut them tight. You swallow smoke. Taste it on your tongue. Your body is covered with sweat and ash. You lie amongst the debris wondering if you should just give up—knowing there are more conflagrations in the future. We are the ones who stoke this hot bed of hate and indifference, so perhaps we should lie in it. Perhaps we deserve annihilation. You think there is nothing good left. But then someone’s hands help you up and you begin to cough out the poison.

Inspired by Happy MotherF’ng New Year. Image by Roy Schulze, with lots of help from Image Creator.