(no subject)
I returned home with a dramatic renewal of purpose and my pockets full of chestnuts. I realized today that summer in Vancouver is a weird and sensory deprived thing. The sky is a noxious grey-yellow, courtesy of the ridiculous amounts of traffic. The air is humid, but not overly so. Not humid to the point where your skin feels sticky and strangely luxurious, just humid to the point where dry is not really an option either. And the humidity also squashes all scent except that of the river; a muddy, sluggish, sewage-tinged scent. Since the ocean is only a few miles away, some days you get a brief snatch of brine drifting through the air. It's quickly tugged under though, squashed mid-air between the fumes from the Jake Brakes of the big rigs and the soot belching from the squat and businesslike tugboats that churn up and down the river. But now the rains have started to come again, and lovely things are peeping out from between the impassive high-rise condominuims and the ever-present snarl of traffic. Today I found and new way to bike home that wanders through a lovely little miniature park, complete with six or seven enourmous old trees and some truly lush green grass. I think it's actually the grounds of an old colonial hospital, that is now being turned into (of course) condos. But the grounds are public now, and the crumbling old facade of the hospital doesn't look like it's going to be destroyed, but refurbished instead. A grand old dame getting a face lift perhaps. I laid on the grass in the sunshine near the trees and read my book under a blue sky, courtesy of several fierce storms that cleaned the air out for just a little while. When I looked at my bike lying in the sun, it looked frozen and picturesque, glossy like a snapshot from a magazine. After I was finished reading, just as I was spinning off down the hill, I realized two of the trees were chestnut trees!! I picked up a few, and might get more tomorrow. We'll see. As I continuued my sojurn home, I decided to take a new route up the hill, up one of the many little suburban streets that meander without any real sense of purpose across the ridge that separates Maillardville from Burnaby. When I stopped to catch my breath, I realized that I had stopped directly next to a rather large, gnarled apple tree. Judging from the height of the tree, and the abundance of rotten apples and hornets on the ground, it doesn't look like anyone is bothering to harvest it, so I may go back down with a stick and see how many apples I can rattle out of the tree. The rosebushes are heavy with rosehips, and the trees are starting to turn red and gold. But the most important thing I noticed today is that smells are re-emerging from the heavy, chewy blanket that was summer air. It actually surprised me today when I caught a whiff of curry from the apartments across the street from my school. But as I biked home, I realized that I could smell all sorts of different things that had been masked until now. Grass, autumn leaves, people, roses, frying food, even that particular crisp smell car exhaust gets when things start to cool down. Thank goodness. Everything always seems a little unreal here, it's nice to see things getting MORE real as opposed to less...