Very well travelled…

After some intense house-cleaning — inside and out, I went for a walk to Chinatown…

My first stop was a bill payment at the Bank of Montreal…

Pender Street at Main…

inside there is a beautiful fish tank full of koi…

I practiced connecting up with the fish…

Horse Whisperer style…

it wasn’t long before they were all gathered in a group facing me…

I thanked them for their audience…

I haven't been shopping for any new shoes...

On my way out I exclaimed to the security guard…

Those fish are so beautiful…

He burst a bubble… the tank is magnified…

WHAT!!!!!!???????!!!!!!

Come see… I’ll show you… when you stand close on this side you can see that the fish are much smaller than they appear… at least half the size…

I tried to reach over the top of the tank to see if I could grab a fish…

but the top was sealed…

I started to wonder if the fish were even real…

or just figments of my imagination…

The security guard said,

They’re real fish…

it is just how you see them through the glass that is the distortion…

This made me think about the time when Starshine asked me, Mama, what’s an illusion???

Next stop…

parmesan…

I remember when I was four, my best little friend Richard’s mom — he used to pull me around our cul-de-sac in a wagon tied to his tricycle, until I moved away at two — took us into the closest place I’ve ever been to an emporium…

an Italian emporium…

The store was completely dark except for a globe of light suspended from the very high ceiling…

An old lady dressed all in black emerged from the darkness and cut a wedge of cheese from a huge block sitting on a cutting board…

then she wrapped some two foot long spaghetti in kraft paper…

I was overwhelmed by the smells of everything in that space and that night I ate the best spaghetti ever… I even had a sleep over and got to wear my friend’s little boy pajamas and we slept soles to soles staring up at the planets and stars that were stuck to his ceiling…

Some time after that, my mom and his dad had a big fight about his beagle Libra and our front yard ditch and that, very sadly, was the last I ever saw of my best little friend Richard and the first I felt of my small broken heart…

I always wondered where that store was…

and if the memory was even real or not…

Did I ever let you go...

Then one day, as an adult, I noticed a store on Main Street (between Keefer and Georgia) where you had to ring the bell for entrance…

I rang the bell, opened the door and stepped into a time machine…

back to that spaghetti night with little Richard…

and today I went back for more…

a big wedge of cheese, which according to Angelo, son of the old lady in black, is the only organic parmesan in town that he gets from a man in Italy who was a relative of his father’s…

Angelo has a collection of  knives on his marble counter and he slices away samples…

I also went away with some VERY GOOD sheep and goat cheese…

Walking east up Keefer to go home I was waiting for the light to turn on the corner of Gore…

minding my own business…

when a woman walked past me as I yawned…

She kept walking past me, but talking at the same time…

her voice clear as day…

You need to get more sleep…

every time I see you on this corner you’re yawning…

I should wrap you up in a bed-roll, whack you over the head and knock you out for awhile so you can catch up on your sleep…

I laughed and said, I’ve never seen you before…

She said, Oh yes you have… I see you on this corner EVERY day…

A young woman on a bicycle exchanged smiles with me…

She said, Funny lady…

I laughed along the whole next block…

remembering a bumper sticker I’d recently seen…

Too many freaks, not enough circuses…

Then went home for a deep afternoon nap…

like I’d been knocked out…

with opium…

And woke up thinking about how public education will not be able to contain the consciousness that is going to be streaming into schools…

the old soul consciousness I can see in all the baby buggies everywhere you look in this endless lambing season…

If we’re all going to hell in a hand-basket we’re in very good hands for our journey…

we just have to be willing to listen to the messages that are being delivered along the way…

I remember Starshine’s English teacher, Neleh Sutfol, hugging me on Sports Day last June…

whispering in my ear…

You are very well travelled, aren’t you…

Where the streets have no name...