laying in the reins

listening to: schumann
drinking: orange-ginger chai

since being back in canada, i have been trying to curb this sense of estrangement, loneliness & longing with milky coffee in bed in the mornings. i indulge in cups of tea and new novels, carefully arranging my books on my new bookshelves, unpacking boxes, renting movies from Queen Video, and swims in the morning & late evening. i make plans with friends to meet for bubble tea & we talk about how we're getting old, of how we're excited. i sit on d's front patio in kensington market, drinking pear nectar & looking at the strip of land between the sidewalk and the fence, what can only be called yard, & the corn that grows there. these are days of afternoon movies, rained-on picnics, getting sort-of lost, & rooftop bars.

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mainly, though, to try to reconcile this estrangement, i have been poring over my parents' old pictures from when they first moved to canada, trying to identify with the sense of adventure & limitlessness that they first felt here. at a family reunion, far north of highways & west of suburbia, in a small farming town on rice lake, i was greeted with "oh! our world-traveller has returned!" to which my mum replied "yes, but not for long! paris misses her." estrangement, loneliness, longing.

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also, i bought a butternut squash (i know, i'm terribly early) & have grand plans of stuffed ravioli with aged goat cheese & hazelnuts and spiced-vanilla squash soup. but that's a different sort of longing. i am very much looking forward to the fall.