An Up Down and All Around Kind of Day

Today was the roller coaster of roller coaster days. SO many highs and lows. But it ended on a high note, sitting at my friend Carm's apartment sipping wine, baguetting melty cheese, and eating the best olive's I've ever eaten.

I have this things with olives. I never used to like them. But I always ate one if they were around. I wanted to like them, they seemed like such a convenient snack, and I had heard that if you try something enough times you eventually like it.

Then one day, maybe a year or two ago… it happened. I enjoyed an olive. A few weeks to months later, it happened with another type, and another type. Seemingly suddenly, not overnight, but over a year… I started liking olives. It was like magic, but it wasn't. Because it was just forcing my tastebuds to adapt.

These olives today were the best olives because I almost died for them. I rode into the on coming traffic lane with a car accelerating fast at me. It was a "dear in headlights" ordeal. I would have been smoked had he not slammed on his breaks. It was fucked. In my defence, there were huge ass planters with branches sticking out the top acting as dividers between the bike lane and the street. The car in the distance was shielded by the planter. It was freaky.

Anyway, after Carm's, I rode home. It made me remember something. Something I do all the time, and used to do a lot more. But I remembered it as if recording a memory in real time. I was riding the streets of Toronto at night. I was track standing and reading traffic and flowing with the pace of the lights, never putting my foot down.

It reminded me of why I came to the city. To ride my bike, and make money doing it. I dropped out of University, riding my bike was the only thing that made me happy, and eventually moved to Toronto to do it as a job. I delivered pretty much everything, from food to paper, packages to drugs. I would ride all day, somedays all night.

I loved seeing the city this way. It reminded me why I fell in love with the city. With the feel of the city. I say "the city" and not "Toronto" because I feel I could come to appreciate many a city in this way. Toronto is great for a whole lot of reasons, but it's also… not so great.

I love the bustle of the city streets, riding through traffic is a meditation. You have no choice but to be present, but you also go on a sort of zoned out/in autopilot.

It made me sad that I'd be leaving that. I learned city life here. I learned to ride a bike here. A fixed gear…

Learned how to work multiple jobs here. Created multiple social circles here. Have a nest here of family, friends, memories.

It's not going to be easy. But it's so plainfully necessary. Yes, plainfully.

I need to memory stack this place. Remember what counts. Riding bikes across the city at night with my friends. Shooting pool at Monarch. The view of the city from the top of the Spadina steps. Jumping the gate/wall at Casa Loma and hugging trees in its magical forest.

All the people. OMG ALL the people I've come to know and love. There's such a stupid beautiful amount of faces that flash before my eyes of all the wonderful people I've been able to encounter and get to know. Such a privilege, and I don't feel like I publicly honour them enough because I'm concerned of coming off as "Oh look how popular I am, I know SO many people." You know?…

But I wish I could just compile the faces of all these people and create a mosaic of them so I could see them all at once.

If you're reading this, you're likely one of those people. Slight possibility you're not, but more than likely you are.

I wish I could speak more about what happened today, but I'm tired and I don't want to go on a rant about mentally disturbed hermits with nothing better to do than sit at home and try to ruin the good, productive lives of others for no legitimate reason other than pure lunacy and bitterness.

BUT, everyone's struggle is their own and maybe she has a perfectly sound reason to be BAT SHIT CRAZY.

ANYWAY

That's it for tonight

AML

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