Sory

There is a new graffiti message showing up on streets, walls and sidewalks in my neighbourhood. I first noticed it on the way to the park. Sory was written in white spray paint across the sidewalk. Yesterday, as I stood at the bus stop, I noticed it written on the street and on the sidewalk, again the white paint. The bus rolled to a stop and passengers disembarked, others clambered on. Sory was hidden by feet and the bus's hulking noise.

Who wrote this? Were they so confident in their spelling they didn't bother to ask, to check? To apologize and to misspell the apology, there is irony in there somewhere or just banality. Or maybe it was written by someone for whom English is foreign and dense. Why two Rs when one will do? I like to think of a lovelorn youth from Bangladesh or Pakistan, getting used to the chilly air and baggy jeans that are the uniform of young men here, falling fast and hard for the girl with the cherry lip gloss, the tight jeans, the hair that smells like paradise. Love is so intense when you're fifteen. What did he do that he needs to write sory all over the neighbourhood? Kiss her best friend? Suddenly, there are so many girls, and it is so easy. How is it possible not to give into temptation? But then when the lust settles, he thinks only of cherry lips and wants to apologize. She won't answer his texts, she blocks his number. He wouldn't dream of going to her house, where tradition reigns and he would be turfed out without so much as a howdeedo?

So he writes on the street, where she will see and understand. But she was born here, raised in the ethnic ghetto, speaks French and English fluently, can pass, can pass, can pass. She is embarrassed that he has misspelled it. Her friends giggle and say sharp things, turning jealousy into astute observation. She pretends it was a joke, she never really liked him. Swish of heavenly hair and she is gone.

Only the sory remains.

'S-O-R-Y,' spells my son from his perch in the stroller. He looks up and smiles. He is so proud of himself.

Brown bird

Imagine, if you will, a little brown bird. This little brown bird peeps and cheeps and hops about. It is one of the many little birds that hop and flutter from the low branches of a cedar bush to the winter snow below by the bus stop in winter. Surrounded by friends, it flutters and flies, lands on the snow on tiny feet, pecks at the ground, maybe a berry, maybe a grain, then dashes off, chased by another bird, a gust of wind, or the arrival of the bus. Its heart beats quickly quickly under its mantle of weightless feathers. It is fragility and self-contained strength in the same breath.

This bird is oblivious to the city heaving and creaking around it. Its world is the cedar bush, the larger bushes nearby, maybe the leafless maple, maybe the eaves of the crumbling apartment block. It is a city bird but in its element because it is free.

Now, imagine a pet shop in the basement of a shopping mall. Any shopping mall, anywhere. At the entrance there are shiny goldfish bowls and starter aquarium sets on sale. In the window, there are sleepy kittens and confused puppies. If you were to enter the store, to squeeze past the still snake and hunched rabbits, past the bird seed and aquarium trinkets, you would come to a small cage with a small brown bird. That little brown bird breaks my heart.

And that is how I am feeling about daycare.

joy undiluted

As I was rinsing out the empty conditioner bottle this morning, I started to look forward to the trip to the pharmacy this would require. I love choosing and buying a new shampoo or conditioner. I like smelling the different offerings. I like admiring the bottles and seeing what tantalizing teasers the shampoo makers have come up with this time (with kiwi! with emu oil! with alpha hydroxy! with apple pectin! and vitamin c!!). I like the hair care goo for blondes and brunettes and redheads. And that gets me thinking of my yet to be realized dream of being a blonde (a perfect, bottle blonde like Marilyn Monroe) which hairdressers have so far dissuaded me from becoming. These thoughts lead me to the hair dye aisle, which I wander lecherously. Streaks and grey cover-up and moustache dye and chestnut and autumnal burgundy and sassy summer blonde. But back to the shampoos and conditioners. I usually try to find one for curlies though not one has worked so far in taming this mop. I avoid the ones that smell like strawberries, apples or candy, or anything else that reminds me of being thirteen. And I usually stick to the under 5$ range, only rarely splashing out for a more expensive one. Once in a fit of hair envy, I bought a 25$ Aveda conditioner based on smell alone. It smelled lovely but was useless for tangles.

Today or tomorrow, expect to see me in the haircare section of the pharmacy, I'll be the one with the dreamy look on my face.