It’s the coldest day of the year and somewhere within, each one of us feels a premonition of mortality shudder our bones. The foyer of the Western Hospital has more homeless people than usual. Mostly men with jagged, unfashionable beards, they curl into the hospital’s available lounge chairs. Shapeless under their winter gear and salvaged miscellany, they appear to be melting—whatever had lived inside, now collapsed and unsupported. These people, so candid, they doze all around us.
Because of the intense cold, my Pulmonary Rehabilitation class was sparsely attended. Pop music, meant to summon our younger, more vital selves, echoed in the mostly empty room. I looked at the cut-out articles on Bristol board that had been pasted to the walls as I walked on the treadmill:
SAVING ENERGY AND MAKING WORK SIMPLE
10 STEPS TO BECOME LESS ANXIOUS
IS IT THE FLU OR IS IT A COLD?
As the class went on, more and more people showed up. People with walkers, people on oxygen, people bent with age and other maladies, each one coming through difficulty. Each one still trying to keep that fire lit. As the class is ending, a video is played where an instructor leads us through a short, cool-down routine. Betsy is sitting in front of me. On oxygen. Perhaps 90 years old. Unaware that the video has ended on a stalled frame, she sits there with her arms outstretched, just like the frozen-instructor on the tv. She just sits there like that, anticipating more instruction. Betsy, she looks like an evangelist taking the stage and greeting her audience. Like an Olympic athlete about to dive off the high tower. Like a bird, waiting for the wind to come up from behind and gently lift her back to flight.
Our son Jones loves to dance. It’s his thing. You can see the joy in his eyes. They shine, lit from some spot deep within. Each morning he jumps up on our bed and dances for us, and it is no small thing. It’s beautiful and unpredictable and so ecstatically rendered that it feels like being blessed by a higher order of being. It’s a good way to start the morning.
Both with sticks, Jones and I walk quietly to daycare. Both of us lucky. Somewhere in our bones we know this unspoken thing. Big, slow snowflakes drift like dandelion puffs around us. A delivery van stops across the street. Bollywood music blaring. Just blaring. Jones has never been quite so astonished. It is a miracle, and he looks at me like we’re both witnessing a miracle. He’s glowing. The snow increases, squalls for a moment. It’s the gentlest invasion of white, as if silent, weightless birds are schooling around us, as if the world fundamentally changed before our eye. Jones points, “There are so many of them, daddy!” The Bollywood music is still pouring out of the van and Jones begins to dance. In his puffy jacket. His rain boots. His ridiculous hat. His glowing face. A woman with heavy snow flakes, glistening and then melting into her dark hair, smiles as she walks her dog through us.
All these things coming together.
This day being made, this day being blessed.
]]>A cold, open morning passing through us. Jones has a red lollipop in his cheek, the stem sticking out like a cigarette. All confidence and swagger he moves up the street like a gangster. He’s looking for a stick. The right stick. All gatherings of plants and bushes must be explored. He holds back the branches of one bush, “Come, Daddy, Come!” He has opened a door that I must pass through, and together we emerge into a new world, journey mystical realms, enter jungles, descend to lakes with lizards and stars. And then Jones standing there. Watching me looking back, all the branches and vines and climbing things now wrapped around him like they did not want to give him up, like he still belonged to their world and not mine. And the bottle collectors are out this morning. They scavenge in the alleys, the glass clinking in their bags like wind chimes from across water.
A cold morning.
The wind down the empty street invigorating, almost inspiring– a reminder that we are of this world, and not the other. Such deep in the bones gratitude in these moments. The day still brand new, still a kind of wilderness. A field of potential stretching endlessly before us. Jones sucks on a green lollipop. His favourite colour on account of the Hulk, the creature his three year old body most yearns for, and above us the sky is changing. The clouds tumbling. The blue of the sky often indistinguishable from the overcast grey, and all around us the stripped trees and withered vegetation. Jones wants to know where all the leaves have gone, and as I am explaining he sees a tree in a yard that’s been decorated for Christmas. He points and shouts, describing the colours and shapes like the miracles they are. And as we look up and through the tree, a cloudbank rolls away from the sun and for a moment we are struck blind by the radiance, and for the rest of our journey ghost lights flicker before us like answered prayers.
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Our son Jones is almost two and a half years old, and he is positively electrified by the creatures.
The idea of them are the current that runs through his body. His sun and moon. His east and west. They are spinning and shining and thumping and roaring through his days, they are everything he wants his universe to be. And so, on a cold morning in the disorienting limbo between Christmas and New Year’s, we took him to the Royal Ontario Museum.
Standing there as we entered, Jones twisting in his jacket to get free from my grip and and run to the “BIG DINOSAUR!”, I was hoping that my son might grow to love museums. I imagined him retreating into them over the course of his life the way he might a lake, emerging nourished and restored after each encounter. Sanctuaries of rich, wide spaces and cool tile. All the marvels of history respectfully arrayed before him, and always, he would have the sense of being somewhere else, a place just outside of time, and of being suspended right before a great mystery that was both his life and not his life.
And then he spun free and ran out into the great hall.
He was just so excited.
He tore from one wonder to the next, identifying each one as best he could. It was astounding to watch. He was a fever. A pinball. A waterfall. A million monkeys typing. I swear to you that he was glowing, he really was.
Watching, I wondered why our children, all so innocent and vulnerable, were attracted to the creatures we consider the most terrible and dangerous? Why run into the jaws of a dinosaur? Why the darkness? And all of the parents there, each one smiling through whatever weight it was their burden to carry, were likely pondering some variant of the same question as they watched their miracles of light streak so beautifully through the museum.
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There’s construction up on Dupont, and if you’re walking on the north side of the street and want to avoid it, you need to pass through the entrance to the subway station.
The doors are always a little bit difficult to open, as if vacuum sealed, and when you do a whoosh of warm, subterranean air greets you. It was raining outside on Tuesday, and a tense, somewhat overwhelmed looking student approached. Perhaps she was far from home and lonely, perhaps everywhere she looked she was facing an obstacle, perhaps she hated this life that had called her. Perhaps anything.
Plugged into her iPhone she looked so remote and sad, so invisible in the loveless expanse of city, but when she opened the door a warm gust of air came upon her. She closed her eyes as her hair lifted and blew back. Her face unclenched and a look of relief fell over her, and it was as if she had just travelled back to wherever she had been happiest. And for a moment she was transported, becoming something glowing, before stepping on the escalator and slowly vanishing beneath.
Middle-aged men, guys getting off work and who are still in their FedEx or Hydro uniforms go there. Each night, as part of a promotion, the bar host’s a card came which takes place at the back on one of those poker tables you can buy at Canadian Tire. The other night it was Texas Hold ‘Em they were playing, and although it’s a cashless game, since it’s poker, people felt heavily invested.
As I was sitting at the bar drifting through the sports section, a fight erupted at the back of the bar. It was extraordinary how quickly rage, explosive rage, swept in and over the table. Men, something now ignited within, had pushed back their chairs and were standing. Screaming and swearing, they waved their arms about and stiffened into fighting posture, fists clenched. A woman, who seemed to be at the centre of it all, had a voice that was a black, untranslatable hiss, more the unearthly vocalizations of possession than language. She threw a glass against the wall, her long hair waving in fury, as the men shouted. It seemed the very manifestation of mental illness, that from the collective interiors of these people, a dark, stormy cloud of violence had been summoned.
But the thing that struck me the most was how quickly it all passed, and how everybody seemed to enjoy it. It had been fun for them. What, I wonder, does that say about us? On a frigid, lonely night in February a group of strangers go out looking for something. They find one another at a card table in a bar, and what they needed was this, to wake up and experience that jolt of electricity spiking through their bodies, so that for a moment each one of them was alive in the streaming arteries, heroes on a battlefield, the lion’s roar that answered back to the night.
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Heidi been really fucking cold all winter.
Really, really bad.
Heidi not have big, messy coat of fur, all ragged and knotted and ugly, but very neat, sheer coat that perfectly outline Heidi’s athletic body. Think tights, but only for all of Heidi. Very sexy.
Bad part about having crazy sexy coat of fur is it not very warm! Heidi cold all the time. Not superficial cold, like cat, but real, to the bone dog cold. Heidi shiver. Want to live in sun! Can’t stop shaking, and then squirrels think Heidi scared, but Heidi not scared, Heidi never scared! Heidi just really, horrible ice cold!! Heidi really hate stupid squirrels. All so fat right now. No pride in appearance. Heidi never let herself go like squirrels. Squirrels just tree garbage.
Cold really ruining quality of Heidi’s life, so said, “screw it,” and went out and bought a Canada Goose parka. It red.
Make Heidi look a little fat, but Heidi as cozy as if wrapped in duvet! Best thing ever! Make Heidi happy!
Heidi out for walk the other day in new parka and see all sorts of two-leggers in line. Angry two-leggers. Holding tree bits and yelling as if everything they see was a Bad Dog!!
And then they look at Heidi and they yell at Heidi!! Why?! Why yell at Heidi!? Heidi Good Dog!! Turn out two-leggers mad because Heidi have parka that keep her warm! Say Heidi cruel and kill coyote for jacket fur!
Heidi hate coyotes! Very happy to kill coyote!! Heidi see coyote once when walking in woods and OMG it was so scary Heidi almost peed!! Heidi just froze! Only tim Heidi EVER scared! Didn’t know what to do! Real nightmare.
Coyote love to kill Dachshund! It is coyote favourite thing! And coyote gang-up, hunt in numbers so not fair! Heidi fight like a dog, one on one, but not coyote!! Coyote have no mercy, no honour, just kill, kill, kill, so Heidi not feel bad for one second for killing coyote to stay warm! So Heidi bark at two-leggers and snarl, and two-leggers flinch and suddenly smell like fear! Ha! Heidi not even have good mobility because of parka, but still they terrified! It good to be Heidi.
When one of them reached up to the overhead compartment she modestly held her top down so as not to expose any flesh above her waist. She looked so very young, almost like a doll. She passed the time by watching videos, her face a shifting map of unfiltered responses, each one blossoming and becoming a kind of sunlight that illuminated her face.
The other one had short hair and the fleshy round face of a Buddha. She asked her friend to put some drops in her eyes, and one of them missed the mark, forming a tear just below her eye where it stayed unattended, as if a moment of sorrow now suspended in time. She was perfectly impassive, and as she sat there staring out the window her eyes grew heavier and heavier. Dazed and almost given to sleep, she seemed in a dimensional fog, just flickering in the limbo of this world, and capable at any moment of becoming more spirit than person and simply floating away.
I was listening to Sigur Ros on my headphones and it all felt like a movie, everything holy and beautiful, as if present only for my attention. Outside, as snow fell, farmlands, retreating forests and tiny homes sped past, more like memories than the architecture of the world. It felt profound, somehow, and then out of the camouflage and dull wash of scrub, a deer stepped from invisibility, so suddenly and magnificently manifest that it could only have been an angel.
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Longest winter ever.
Colder than an owl claw outside! Salt burn paws like Nazi torture and Heidi always shivering! Awful!! Heidi live an eternity in this stupid den. Been so long since Heidi go out that her nails now all long like reclusive billionaire. Life Heidi lead no life at all, just lie around with four-eyed, two-legged treat giver and listen to him breathe. Such shallow breath! Always smell of fear, too. Weak, four-eyed, two-legged treat giver, very weak.
Heidi so bored ready to kill other pack members, but that make Heidi BAD DOG, so Heidi no kill pack. Heidi GOOD DOG, Heidi, PRETTY DOG. Heidi decide that right thing to do to stave off winter fever to get job. Heidi take test on-line to get prepared.
1. Would you rather have world peace or have a treat?
Tough question for Heidi. Have to think long time. Decide treat.
2. Are your instincts to lead or to follow in a crisis situation?
Heidi born pack leader! Heidi always first to stick her head in hole or eat thing on street!
3. Would you rather chase a squirrel or would you rather save a dying child?
Heidi think world without squirrels safer for the children. Heidi chase squirrel. For the children. Heidi always think of children.
4. Would you rather dig a hole in the garden or be an Olympic champion?
Not enough information in question. Heidi need to know what sport. Is digging hole in garden Olympic sport?
5. Would you rather kill a cat or kill a squirrel?
Heidi think about this question long time. Think about this whole life. Cat very deserving of being killed, no doubt, but as squirrel live in sky most of time, more of challenge to kill squirrel, so Heidi have to choose squirrel. Heidi ambitious leader, very good employee!! Not scared of a challenge! (But truth is Heidi really like to kill both squirrel and cat at same time. Heidi think poison.)
6. Would you rather lick a bowl or learn to fly an airplane?
Lick bowl.
7. Describe the work environment or culture in which you are most happy.
Heidi at her best on fetch field! Very fast dog! Hate other dogs, though. Dogs come to steal Heidi ball! Very bad situation! If no fetch field Heidi like to work on grey blanket or red blanket in den. Play with squeak toy there, never get boring! Heidi very versatile dog.
8. What role does your manager or supervisor play in your personal motivation at work?
Give treats to Heidi, take her walks, get her things and collect poo.
9. Would you rather have a nap or read a good book?
Nap.
10. In the news story of your life, what would the headline say?
Heidi good dog.
