kaleidoscoping

music: don't call me whitney, bobby - islands

i am telling strangers i've come home for my grandmother's birthday and this makes me feel like a good person. in truth, i'm not sure why i'm here now instead of there. the woman sitting beside me on our unsteady flight introduces herself as peggy. six vodka tonics later, both endless and over enthusiastic, she thanks me for saving her when we didn't crash. at the airport in toronto, the waiting line for taxis is longer than the one to get on airplanes. and i secretly hope, elevator gliding to the baggage carousels, that familiar surprise faces will be waiting there to claim me. i sit beside an old woman on the bus to kipling station and her georgia o'keefe eyes brighten the lonely, raging snowstorm. she tells secrets of her midnight dancing on warm beaches and the moon's unseen opalrose aura. there is fresh graffiti on the downward walls of my favourite toronto place (the so brief outside from broadview to castle frank). 'supercalafragalistic' in neon pink and green makes me smile. my dentist says i have a beautiful set of teeth. i tell him i've never been told this before (and i haven't and please don't). i get off three stops early and visit my favourite bubble tea place, a bustling often-empty noodle shop. it is honeydew sugar sand against my tongue, worth my ten frozen fingers. a taxi-shaped blur crushes a pigeon and it writhes alone on grey pavement, holding stiff wings up to the air like hands, like hope. nobody notices and they push against my back, annoyed when i stop to witness its dying. eight scarf-wearing boys walk toward me on the sidewalk and they all smile hello. but none of them look like they'd enjoy reading books together aloud.