There's a liminal wonderment to being in an empty subway station. I want to scream something. I want to climb into the tracks. I want to vanish into the tunnels and run wild and transcend into legend.
The coffee shop is mostly but not quite full. We claim the last 3 seats. We have been walking for 3 hours to try and find a non-chain coffee shop. We failed.
Two guys are arguing, screaming at each other. I pause my music to get a sense for it. Cannot tell what it's about. Just pure anger.
The landlord calls us and offers us a tour the next day. I arrive the next day to find an "unsafe building, please demolish" notice, posted by the city 4 months ago. The landlord never shows up.
The car swerves into the bike lane unexpectedly. No turn signal. It almost runs me over. He gives me the finger and shouts something unintelligible.
"Oh don't worry, she's friendly", she says, but the dog is bigger than I am and rapidly getting closer, teeth out. I glance at the nearby off-leash zone. I am on the correct side of the fence.
One high school summer, I would bike along the lake to visit my girlfriend, an hour each way. It was the most fit I'd ever been.
To me, the trail by the river is the best bike trail in the city. Not because it's a good bike trail (although it is), but because one summer I rode it every day for a month while I sorted out my gender. I rode alone, slamming the peddles as hard as I could and playing the loudest music I could and screaming as loud as I could, for as long as I could, until the sweat poured off me and I couldn't breath and I had to lie in the sun until I finally settled into myself. I owe that river everything.
The lake is south. The lake is always south. I don't know how to navigate cities that don't have lakes to the south.
"You can't rent this apartment. You don't make enough money". "But we can afford it". "Income not high enough. Next!"
We walk for 4 hours. We see parts of the city I've never seen before. We see the tiniest fraction of the city.
In the neighbourhood I grew up in, almost every store that opens closes after a year. New ones pop up constantly. They all die too.
I'm biking as fast as I can down the trail. It's the only way I can bike. There are bugs in the air and a few go into my mouth. I love being surrounded by water.
The bus doors close in front of me. I knock. It drives off without me anyway.
I hate this city. If you tell me that you hate it too, I'll fight you.
There are fireworks tonight and you can tell because the neighbourhoods near the beach are filled with cars. They fail to park, mostly. They idle in the streets and watch from there, a perfect gridlock.
There used to be a cake shop and a neighbouring book shop that combined to work a cake cafe for reading books. I went often as a kid. Both have been replaced 3 times.
The host of the party was so impressed by my ability to take vodka without flinching that she kept giving me more shots. I only made it home thanks to the extended subway operational hours for New Years.
You first kissed me while we were riding the subway. I wasn't ready. I don't think I ever would've been ready.
I ding my bell twice and start overtaking the child. The child doesn't care. It randomly swerves left without looking, and I almost hit a tree to avoid a collision. The dad stares at me with disapproval.
I sunburn myself once a year by accident. It's a terrible tradition. This year it was because everyone else wanted to keep wandering rather than sitting under a tree and enjoying the view.
Transit freed me. I love my bus. I couldn't get anywhere without it.
They delayed my train for an unknown amount of time. I camp out in the station. The wifi doesn't work, never getting past the screen proudly declaring that they have wifi now.
The city is so full of people and yet I'm at my happiest and safest when curled up under a blanket, calling friends who live many many cities away.
My first exposure to environmentalism was a series of signs in my local park, talking about the efforts undertaken to undo previous catastrophic damages to the ecosystem. There's a plastic cup in the pond again.
My chain jams and I go flying into the night air. I hang for a moment and have just enough time to think "oh shit this is going to hurt". My mother thinks I should stop biking at night. If there had been anyone on the road, they would've run me over.
I ride the transit for two hours each day to get to and from high school.
I sat with my closest friend, who I didn't think of as that close, for 4 hours in a creperie. The staff didn't bother us. I think they thought we were on a date. Maybe we were.
My high school is a hole in the ground now. The building was over a century old and full of secrets, now all lost to time and legend.
I went to a gaybar and had an okay time.
Construction never stops. Change never stops. It's comforting. If the city can improve, there's no reason I can't.
I got lost in the train station. There are 3 basements. I don't think they connect. I think they share space through some manner of 4th dimensional existence.
You told me the city looks like the rich boring neighbourhood your family lives in. I want to protest that it's just this neighbourhood but I cannot find the words.
My phone blinks alive as the train pulls into each station, connecting greedily to the snippets of available signal. It loses it again as we disappear back into the tunnels, 20 seconds later.
The mayoral election reached over 100 candidates before they closed applications.
We went to a smaller bar while waiting for a call to tell us when there was a free table at the one we'd planned on. We had a better time at the small bar than we ever would've at the big one.
Friends tell me of spontaneously attending raves. I prefer my quiet nights indoors.
They took out the bridge for highway construction, and I can't get on to the river trail anymore. It won't go up again for at least 5 years. A part of me has been ripped out.
The second last of the local stores I went to as a kid closed a few weeks ago. I'm terrified about losing the last one.
I asked the lone employee if I had yet missed the final train of the night and get a vague handwave in return. I consider walking for 3 hours instead.
There is nothing profound at the end. Just another day alive, just the quiet beauty of lying under a tree and watching the sun drift, just the rumble of trains beneath me. This is home. I missed it while I was gone. I'll miss it again when I leave.