Sylvie Hill

Oh dear me. If you could have seen the streets tonight, lit up from the street lamps, and the brick walls beaming inside with book shelves, and neat lighting fixtures, and characters dining, bathing, doing their things in Montreal. My street! It’s my street! It was so peaceful, and me so full of peace. Walking with the staircases winding, and the tall tall tallness of these plexes, and buildings. It’s a street that was dismantled and undone – and now, paved over, smooth, no longer under construction. Like you. Or me. When we’ve ripped everything to shits, and tore out the ground from underneath but preserved some roots to the most important things while re-paving, and re-building, and gutting the place from the insides out to make better foundations that’ll last for so long, ah… that’s when you regain your calm. What was once … torn up, is rebuilt, and full of wonderment. Now how can you hate anything about life that is of your own choosing, when what you settle for was yours and your taking. Be careful about crapping on your lot or situation – you chose it to break free from some shitty predicament. But will you be brave enough? Curious enough? Hungry enough. I hope you will be because life is all about little moments like the walkabout, down the street when the sun’s gone down, and the quiet settles in on a favourite town … and you’ve nothing to do but breathe in air after exercise, grateful in your health for being able to move your thighs. And your only dilemma is what treats to eat tonight. And your only complaint is you don’t spend enough time with the ones you love and who love you back dearly, alright…

Montreal, November 25, 2019

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By the way, imagine skateboarding on the beautiful, fresh pavement?