Today I had my last class of my undergrad! It was Montreal & Quebec Writers and the man of the hour (or rather 2.7 hours) was David McGimpsey, a professor I was glad to give my final moments of undergrad lecturedom to. (Until I do another undergrad in like 6 months probably unless I move to Paris to cuddle French babies...)
YEEEAH. That goes out to my girl Emma Jane Cridge, for always knowing just what to write in a Valentine to her soul sister.
Do you know what this is??
It's my beloved Bayview Public School on Riverside Drive across from Mooney's Bay in Ottawa, as it appeared 50 years ago.
I first set foot in this school in 1989 and human remnants of my time there still linger in my life today. That came out wrong, like Silence of the Lambs-ish but really I just mean that had I gone to the school over the hill (Holy Cross aka Holy Crap), this quarter-life crisis I am currently in the midst of might be a whole other can of worms entirely in terms of who's who/what's what.
Kweku and Laura (Emma's way cool sister that has slumber partied me sassy lately) joined my dad and I for a leisurely drive back to Ottawa Sunday morning and after we dropped those suckers off...and Kweku's dentist dad advised me against using superglue on my acrylic teeth...something my dad (the ear/nose/throat doctor) had thought was a great idea...well we drove down Riverside Drive to see that most of Bayview had been demolished...
My brother Alex said they started it last week and then it was the holiday weekend so that was why there was still some left, the part where it says BAYVIEW in the 1959 photo actually.
Alex was super tough about Bayview, like it wasn't even worth shedding a tear over!
[SIDENOTE: My mom makes the prettiest most delicious cakes.]
So Bayview's demise...I knew it was coming but I didn't know when. Last night when I was still in Ottawa, I thought I might bike over to say goodbye to what was left of it...
I didn't, and this morning as my dad drove me to catch the 7am bus back to Montreal, Bayview was gone. So on the day I clock out of 20 straight years of institutionalized learning...the place I clocked in breathed its final breaths.
Sigh...
And it's funny, I didn't think to mention it to my favourite bus station ticket booth fellow 6 foot WHOA Kelvin Lee this morning because my brain was broken, but it's sort of wild that I should cross his path today considering I met him at Bayview as my brother's little buddy way back when.
Aaaaand, Kelvin told me in a no way way that Darcy took the 6am bus to Montreal today, Darcy being Darcy Cooke my old roommate, he who I also met way back when at Bayview Public School.
Darcy in our old apartment in the year 2006.
Sigh...
It's kind of sad and beautiful isn't it?
Anyway. Just because I'm done classes don't mean I don't got no more essays or zammers to write so I really ought to get on that shit.
So the most important thing right now is that I give my sister Hilary the cyber-gift of the Easter eggs I made her since she couldn't take part in the decorating festival because she was in Halifax at the library I think.
The giant robin's egg with hearts is important because I love and miss my sister. The cats are important because Hilary hates cats. And the purple egg is important because when we were decorating them Hilary called and my dad asked her what colour of egg she wanted him to make in her honour, she said "purple" and he had to tell her the sad truth, which was that the purple wasn't really working out for us...
So I made her a purple egg to the best of my ability, you know? I mean, what more could I do, right?? Come on, orange you glad?? Me too, yeah!
Oh wait! I forgot to mention that I did say goodbye to Bayview, in December. I went for a walk with my parents to the Country Grocer to get some chips for Hilary because she wanted some chips of course. And we walked through the schoolyard on my way home. And as my parents walked ahead I lingered outside the window of my junior kindergarten classroom. The window was broken in the bottom right-hand corner and I stuck my hand inside so that I could be in that space again for what I imagined was probably the last time. Then I caught up to mom and dad playing that game where you try to run fast enough that you never really break the snow-ice surface enough that you actually have to stop and retrieve your boot and take off your sock that has basically come off your foot anyway...
If you can't even try to live vicariously through my sentimentality then bless your cold cold heart. (And your still-standing kindergarten classroom??)
On that note, I felt that today was a good day to buy myself a book for pleasure and a new shade of pink nailpolish to enhance my academic endeavours.
That pink is called Mod Squad which is pretty boring and unoriginal (as a certified teenager, I want to be anything but) but the book should be neither of those things because I find Tracey Emin to be all kinds of good things like empowering, cooler than Damien Hirst (duh), and straight-up soul sister material.
This means that I would like to talk to her and ask her lots of questions and ask her what she thinks about all my secret art dreams that I like to think of as pre-production realities rather than imaginary daydreams...
MUCH RESPEK 4 TRACY EMIN, YO!
What about the flowers back there?? My dad got them for me, duh, because he is a righteous dude who knows how a lady ought to be treated.
He also made sure not to leave out a sunny afternoon stroll on St. Denis with a decadent brownie (with ginger in it, what kick!) and the most supremely exciting hot chocolate ever. It vaas HOT CHILE style top-notch straight fiyah.
Did you notice that that last sentence could be part of the answer to "sounds like...BIG WILLY STYLE"?? Me neither, but more power to it.
SO BIG UP 2 MA FAM YO, LOVE YOU LONG TIME, YO YO YO.
Alex, you didn't even make me cry this time! Which isn't to say you don't squeeze too hard when you hug...which isn't to say you should stop lifting heavy objects... I think your girlfriend Victoria probably likes that about you.
My dad told me that if a child does not take notice of the wonders of nature by the time they are twelve, chances are they will never find pleasure in the changing of the seasons, which would of course be tragic.
He had some vague proof of this, and related it to how this woman let her kid in small-town Mississippi was walk to soccer practice last month and the neighbours called the cops and there was all this controversy because he was like, only 12 or something...maybe he didn't have a cell phone or he forgot to turn on his GPS switch to notify the mayor or the mid-wife who helped his mom out back in '97...
My dad talks about plants as though they have feelings, so proud of the "brave little crocuses" for making their way through the cold hard ground to greet us in spring.
AYE-AYE, CAPTAIN.
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