My dog and I run through the rain, down the street I grew up on. Our feet are the loudest sound. I’m carrying a bag full of crab shells to dispose of in the garbage can at the end of the road, by the community mailbox. A family sees me do it and I imagine how peculiar I must look. On the way back I’m taking big sniffs, the kind that are like gulping, and […]
An elderly man at the next till says cheerfully to the cashier, “Hallo Fräulein. Wie geht’s dir? Do you know what I just said?” She giggles and says no, and that it sounded funny. He takes it in good stride. I turn to look at him and he is smiling, wearing a cardigan I actually would like to own myself. Later, in the rain, another elderly man, this one in a trenchcoat, waves at a
Amazing how silent the world can be mere metres from one of the busiest streets in the largest city in Canada. Just birds, birds that trill, that laugh, that shout, and the full faraway sound of an airplane, and the cars in the distance that sound like a river. But mostly the birds, and the whole other world sleeps.
Walking home along the frozen river. I had thought I would be cold in my skirt, thick tights and legwarmers but I was fine. Snow was falling down lazily and sticking to my wool coat, my eyelashes and the tips of my hair. Someone was cross-country skiing on the river. I kept pace with her and watched her, noticing her movements. My mother used to cross-country ski in Finland. I thought I would like to try
I stand on my parents’ driveway waiting for my friend, who has forgotten what house I am after so many years away. It’s so quiet and I remember many other nights like this in high school, waiting for some boyfriend or friend under the light, looking up at the sky and thinking those thoughts all teenagers think about the stars. There’s a tree in the way now. She finds me and we go to our
“I remember the day I started to write that. It was in January, a Sunday. I went down to the bookstore, which wasn’t open Sundays, and locked myself in. My husband had said he would get dinner, so I had the afternoon. I remember looking around at all the great literature that was around me and thinking, You fool! What are you doing here? But then I went up to the office and started to
Two men are sitting diagonally from each other debating the economy. One is getting more wound up than the other. He has a slight French accent and is wearing shorts with white socks pulled up tight. He is giving analogies about “the old days.” He is picking up the newspaper that lies on the table and tears off a corner in support of one such analogy. The other man has a British accent. He tries
A man who is balding but also growing his hair long comes into the coffeeshop with a girl who could be his daughter. They sit on the couch in front of me and both pick up a section of the newspaper that is in front of them. The girl reads the front section and the man reads the sports. They share a bagel, barely speaking. After a while, the girl puts her paper down, crosses
Other people, 2007 Read More »
I finished reading this book a few days ago. It took me a while, because reading Alice Munro both uplifts me and makes me feel like writing is futile. To distract myself from the latter feeling, I often flipped to the inscription on the front. Yesterday it was my birthday I hung one more year on the line . . . I should go to bed, but a voice in my head says ‘oh what
When I was a kid, I knew I’d love being an adult. But more than being able to stay up late and eat cake for breakfast if I wanted to, what I didn’t anticipate was how great it would feel to spend time with old friends, and their parents, sitting tightly around a table and eating good food and passing good drinks around, and laughing and having several different conversations at once and feeling like
move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass Read More »
