TODDLA T was in town this weekend as part of his whistle stop Canada-US tour. It was one of those “summer’s officially over” sort of days. There was rain. There were howling winds (the kind of that whips girls’ hair in every direction at once and causes empty garbage cans to roll about). It was cold. It didn’t make any sense. Nobody cared.
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Today I did something crazy. I left my house, walked to the Filipino corner store, and walked out with a thing of ice cream. Not just any ice cream. The kind I got was corn and cheese ice cream. Yes. Filipino corn and cheese ice cream. And I didn’t even look scared.
I put the the container down by the cash, pushed my shades up into my hair and smiled at the owner, a sweet man in his 30s with the face of someone who has a bunch of loud kids at home.
“So, is corn and cheese big in the Philippines, ice-cream flavour-wise” I said.
Two newly pubescent boys who were being handed tamarin slushes and fried fishballs turned around mid-grab and stared. (more…)
ALASKA, some time in the fall. – Even with a full tank, there was barely enough to drive the truck there and back. One shot, no messing around. That’s what he said when I asked about exploring the villages. Next time, maybe, he said. If we think of packing an extra can of gas. We both knew that was polite form for “never.” I was very careful not to pout. Nothing worse than a pouty girl on the first day of a roadtrip.
On both sides of the road, glaciers stood tall, snowy chins up. It wasn’t the super-heavy kind, but we drove in silence, pulling over every once in a while to pick up a frozen, heavy rock he thought would look good around the house he’d be building, come spring. His house.
At dusk, in the concrete pools fed by hot springs, we soaked our souls and bones in silence. Eyes closed, worlds apart, lost strands of hair framing his face like a floating halo of snakes. The ripe grapes he said would be there, begging to be picked, weren’t. The vines, shriveled and black, cast gnarly shadows on the greenhouse ceiling and walls. The only sound was the sound of water.
Traveling alone from the hot-hot pool, the slightly-less-hot pool, and the pool that was just-right, I hummed to myself and wondered why I’d come so far. Wrapping my hair, I stepped out of the water and walked to bed alone, the stinging night air tingling on my skin, almost as sweet as kisses.
In the passenger’s seat, after morning waffles and cigarettes, I smiled at the frost clinging to the dead fireweed. Somewhere along the way, as we drove past raging rivers we couldn’t hear, I started to sing. Softly, anything and everything, what else was there to do. On the back seat, the dog sat up, puzzled or amazed.
Unloading the rocks, back at the cabin, he said whatever happened to you. I never heard you sing before.
