On Tuesday afternoon the sunlight was so thin and distant that it felt like early morning. As I took the dog for a walk through Yorkville we saw a woman of around 60 standing at the end of her driveway, her arms crossed, smiling. Another woman, a little bit younger but not by as much as she thought, hurried excitedly out of her Minivan, her husband sighing at the wheel. In a thick, Jewish accent she exclaimed, “Oh my, I used to watch you everyday on TV when I was growing up. You were the best and you just have no idea what you meant to me!” The woman to whom the compliment was being directed, seemed equally embarrassed and delighted by the attention, gesturing to the woman to come into the driveway and stop making a spectacle, pedestrians walking by, completely unaware of the multiple narratives that informed this moment.
Passing the expensive spa by Morton’s we saw a perfect looking blonde woman having her hair done. She was probably a celebrity, or if she wasn’t, was trying very hard to look like one. She had three gay men dressed in tight black Armani clothes working around her, one of whom was bent over and attentively and placing a slice of lime on the glass of the drink she was holding. She looked impatient and unhappy, as if whatever her life contained simply wasn’t enough, and outside a gorgeous day was steaming unexpectedly through the city.
There was a long line-up at the Bank and Heidi sat patiently by my feet. An Asian man stood beside me, looking at Heidi as if he had just landed from another planet and had never imagined, let alone seen, such a creature. I told him our Dachshunds name and he repeated it slowly and with some difficulty, like the anesthetic from his trip to the dentist had not yet worn off.
Just behind me in the line a girl in thigh-high boots and a leopard print top with her name tag–Krista–on it, spoke into her cell phone.
“You’ll never guess who I bumped into this morning?”
“Yes, it was him!”
“I couldn’t believe it! Can you believe it!?”
Yeah, he said he’s working for Food TV now.”
Heading home, workers sat on church steps taking the sun, while student athletes in shorts were jogging and skateboarding, all perfect, moving quickly and beautifully forward. A happy man, whistling, was setting us his sidewalk bookstore at the corner of St. George, the first book he laid down on the pavement an old, hard cover history of The Renaissance, a glittering jewel he hoped would catch somebody’s eye.
At Bloor and Spadina there was a sudden surge of Japanese tourists, almost all of them around 10 years of age. Each one had their cell phones out, videoing the city around them, and then suddenly all the sunshine squeals and shrieks as they noticed Heidi, small, beautiful and alive right in their midst.