shop night!!

i'm standing at the streetcar stop, feeling a little prematurely nostalgic.

a month ago, i would have sold my rings for spring. yet i stood today marvelling at how a light dusting of snow can transform the world into magic, framing a lake that looks impossibly metallic. (oh no wait, it is lake ontario.. it's probably just the mercury.) i realized this is one of the last times this season i'll be granted this glorious sight, and my heart felt strangely tight.

it's a time of transition. may is usually my new year ushered in by something grandiose. last year weighed in heavily with the loss or transformation of 2 lives, 2 loves, one job and a neighborhood. though not nearly so spectacular, this year it's march that is leaving me with that bittersweet aftertaste. (how much of my life must i sacrifice to the liminal? and yet surely there is a subconscious yearning there, ever propelling me into new.)

i'm also thinking about the shop (you know, where i've dedicated my thursday nights to since last autumn). i remember in january talking with andrew and bill about how i'd worried about losing the shop. at the time, i thought that horror show of a non-relationship would be the culprit, and silly motherfucker: it almost was. (thankfully he got over himself.) they protested boisterously: "the shop is for everyone! the shop will always be!"

i smiled and quietly sipped my beer.
sure boys.

i really loved their attempt, their enthusiasm. and perhaps even their sweet naiveté.
but they don't know.
they've never lost a shop before.

i have.

that smaller shop in vancouver. so fondly do i still long sometimes for those endless nights of drinking apocalyptic hooch and dreaming big with the boys. the Herb Alpert room. the tech lounge, shut down by the sultan of no-fun. so many of us scattered to the wind after that... i came to toronto.

i'm thinking about all this as i wait for the streetcar, admiring the snow-feathered branches, keeping my heart light and my spirit bright, and trying not to think about how they're shutting the shop down on march 31.

only 2 more nights...