There was the time I was walking down 1st ave between Commercial Drive and Clark street and the leaves were falling. They gleamed like tattered gold foil against the blue grey sky. It was mid October.
1st ave is a commuter street. A passage from the highway to downtown. It is noisy and busy and all of the cars drive too fast.
My friend used to live in a walk up apartment that faced 1st ave. Rooms joined in a circle. Living room to bedroom to kitchen. I went over to feed her cat once and we sat on her couch and watched a movie. It was raining that day and the movie was sad. The continuous hum of traffic permeated every quiet scene, every pause and glance.
When I first met my partner, we once heard a dog barking but it sounded like a chicken. I made fake posters that asked “Has Anyone Seen Dog-Chicken?”. There were pull-tabs on the bottom of the poster that would normally share a phone number or email. Instead, you could pull a small drawing of dog-chicken. I remember taping a poster along the bike path that crossed 1st ave. Out of all of the posters I created, this one was the most popular. All of the tabs were gone within two days.
Once we went to a Halloween house party along 1st ave, it was at someone’s house we didn’t know. Everyone in the backyard was quietly sipped beer, a vampire talked to a hamburgler who was looking at their phone. A couple of power rangers smoked cigarettes near the alley. We walked up the wooden stairwell to the third floor and started dancing in an empty living room. The room slowly filled with people until there was almost no where to stand. My partner boosted me on to the mantle of the fireplace and I held the ceiling for balance, laughing hysterically. I was a ghost in a bedsheet. I wasn’t wearing socks.
On that day in mid-October, I remember thinking how beautiful those leaves were. It was the kind of moment that they try to recreate in movies, that animators spend hundreds of hours trying to capture. A photo couldn’t replicate the wind that looped its way around every limb and branch.
My friend moved out of the city and the apartment she lived in burned down a handful of months later. The lot sat empty for a while but it eventually sold. It will be a duplex in a year from now.
My bike is creaky and needs some oil. Dust has gathered on its seat. Cobwebs stretch between each spoke.
I don’t hear about Halloween house parties anymore. The last one I went to was years ago and everyone was high on coke. I retreated to the kitchen and had a funny conversation with someone who talked too fast.
Everything changes and that’s fine. But sometimes I’m on the look out for those beautiful little moments. The ones I can accidentally drive by while tuning out to a podcast. The scenes I miss while scrolling on my phone during transit. The leaves falling like golden confetti while I stay inside all day instead.
