This next excerpt is a sad, thoughtful one for dear Henry. It's been awhile since I wrote it, but I believe that I was reading Elizabeth Smart's 'By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept' at the time.
Elizabeth was a writer originally from Ottawa, and her life (and the book) was quite sad and tragic at times; nonetheless, she was an honest poet. The one passage from her book that particularly struck me was when, in a diner or restaurant, she stares into a napkin dispenser and observes her reflection, realizes in it that this is her lot in life: to be shackled to this love for a man she can never fully have.
Elizabeth was a writer originally from Ottawa, and her life (and the book) was quite sad and tragic at times; nonetheless, she was an honest poet. The one passage from her book that particularly struck me was when, in a diner or restaurant, she stares into a napkin dispenser and observes her reflection, realizes in it that this is her lot in life: to be shackled to this love for a man she can never fully have.
Chapter 7: Ottawa. Variously post-Spain.
The most beautiful and the unexpected. Her disregard for shy and the ingenuity that it inspired.
These are mere words for the Christmas present that to this day makes me weak of the knees. I’ll admit it now, or whatever future time You might want to ask to my mind again. The feeling will not change. Perspective will have moved but I hope and pray that the initial warmth never leaves me. It’s what worries me most now, what concerned me in glorious Spain of lengthy history: I still loved X, sat across from her in a small restaurant and slow realized the What that only I knew.
A gift. The power of photography to create collage and the say of so much more. I turned the pages of the ringed keepsake given to me and witnessed her simply perfect black-and-white version of our beginning romance: the gilded edge of the thick presentation book, pictures with brief of caption stylized in pen. Wonderful. These were the images of Parliament Hill, of bars, of the rear of one specific building: the spot of a favourite fire escape enjoyed by her for fact of outside cigarette puff and quick return back inside to my kitchen; loved by me to feed a nostalgia for television cops-and-robbers chases through the back alleys of San Francisco, New York City - which is not an actual city but more a series of mostly usurped boroughs totalling 5 and yet really mainly the island of Manhattan that is paraded or tacitly referenced to in just about everything. But sorry.
The most beautiful and the unexpected. I struggle to recall the exact scene of each frame and leave behind the now charred edges that poke out from the Glad bag of our garbage heaven or hell; seems one of us had gotten into the vino and decided to up and barbecue that particularly special evidence of our relationship. I should add that the reason why Mexican jumping beans Jump is because of the life still burning inside. Sorry.
The sight of our first date. The lounge bar she worked when we first met. The front of my old apartment building on Cooper Street; its rear and that cool, black fire escape. At the time, she told me that the various people were freaked out by a someone alone snapping pictures of Their area with a disposable camera. This was mostly Centretown - freak central of my, our Ottawa.
I hold this snifter of smooth, black liquid in my hand and swirl the maybe four cubes of ice to further chill Mexican Kahlúa of choice, perhaps cousin of Tia Maria that sounds Italian but actually be from the beautiful island of Jamaica, from a bean. I ponder the ashes of the once was - the inevitable look back too late. Wonderfully lame, as I sip a good third of three fingers and relax into my bachelor-friendly futon; the smell of new is gone for me. I am in the realm of different. This be the future.
A perhaps flash from the gift in question smoldering in the former couple's barbecue:
On a lighter note, the clip below is apropos of Henry's love of fire escapes, T.V. car chases down back alleys:
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