the city to come

It is a city after all. When I first came, I thought it wouldn’t be, that I would just park myself for a few years and accomplish. Lay groundwork for a future elsewhere. But the future is now, and elsewhere is here, and I am surprised to find myself alive and amazed. Not because I’ve arrived anywhere, but only because the future’s edging is here in the present, and the city, for all that it replicates other cities, is still Calgary, and is okay.

Saturday, I drink a glass or two with all the yoga folk at Jeff Mah’s farewell party. Everyone looks a bit odd and unfamiliar in civilian clothes. Visit with Travis in his studio while he posts ads for robot purchases on his wall. We talk about larynxes and antimemory.

Sunday, I do full primary series, including headstand, roll to the little pink house on 12th St. NW to feed greedy Pim the cat, breakfast with the kids at Dairy Lane. Derek’s daughter Maddie hams for the camera. Hot September sun, perfect soft poach, honey in my tea instead of sugar. Michael has a nasty bruise on his arm from a punch some drunken asshole delivered, and forgot.

Currie Barracks Market. Brussel sprouts, red peppers and apples are in season. I buy peacock kale, and some of summer’s last blackberries. We sit in the sun eating the city’s best gelato, contemplating our luck.

In this part of September we can smell both summer and winter. We are perfect and hopelessly flawed. We long for all we can’t have, and we have everything we could possibly desire. Somewhere else there is a war. We are still responsible. Somewhere else someone is happier. We don’t know about it. The moment passes. The present keeps arriving.