places unbinding at their seams

song: milk bottles, beth jeans houghton
word: lucullan

scarborough bluffs, may 2008

i've been spending lots of time drinking tea, doing laundry, watching clouds. i add them as ingredients to my recipe-box mornings (twisting the dials of the machine before i leave the house, filling the kettle with water when i come home). i wear the shoes i bought in essaouira & parents of once-down-the-street children stare at my toes. this makes me happy in the loneliest of possible ways. mostly, i go to the park at the street's end, the one that's an empty playground and a field of half-wished dandelions. past the safety fence everything turns wild, tumbling down clay cliffs toward the beach, the lake, sky.

suburbia terrifies me with its house-proud & humdrum. lacquered. everything perfectly spaced, even the blades of grass grow in magnificent rows. there is no peeling paint; rust cannot creep into the over-oiled joints of garden gates. magnolia petals rotting into front lawns are the truest thing for miles. it's strange in a place with so little story, i am flocked with so much growing up. i look at a bench & see grade two picnics.

it's only a five-minute walk to the new library of supremely uncomfortable, but quite modern armchairs. (there aren't librarians anymore, just pads to weigh & catalogue our choices.) i sit with my grandparents at tea-time, go on afternoon runs. i am reading one thousand novels. tomorrow, i am going to make an experimental avocado cheesecake and in the evening, go to andrea & oso's goodbye party-concert.

i sit cross-legged in the clay, watching sailboats sail & birds glow black against the sky. right now, i want things falling apart in my hands.