Harvest

Sometimes you can feel it. Fulfillment. Being in the moment.

Sometimes you are grateful.

Sometimes beauty can be found in the damndest places. A classroom. A bunch of tomatoes. A montage (West Side Story meets the barrio meets corruption in the fashion world) in Ugly Betty.

Sometimes, things come together. A disparate grouping of friends, ex-lover, and cousin, in a bar. I am doing a reading. They have come to be my entourage, they know these things are difficult in their own nervous, show-offy way. They are precious, these people.

Sometimes, things shift, you never thought they would. On the radio sentiment seems finally to be turning against Canadian involvement in the war in Afghanistan.

And sometimes it’s hard to get up in the morning. Sometimes, it sucks that the leaves are turning and you’ll soon be putting on long underwear, a sweater, a coat, a scarf, gloves, hat and boots, to go outside. Sometimes, your eyes are dull, and the world slides past them.

Other times, your eyes don’t miss a thing.

Sometimes, you are grateful.

For leaves singed with ochre. For mornings. For classrooms. For words. For TV, for espresso, your favorite neighbourhood bar, for the taste of organic ginger ice cream, a new TV season, a lightly flavoured chicken soup your cousin served you, New Yorker Magazine’s food issue, a version of a Caprese salad you made up the other day on the fly, slices of peach and boconncini on a bed of arugula, sprinkled with balsamic and olive oil and basil.

Happy fall.