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I parked in my usual spot at Montreal’s Old Port. I picked up my gear, slapped on a mask and walked away, alone, camera in hand. The last time I’d shot street was on December 12, 2019. I had to look it up. There’s a new project behind this so I can’t show images yet, but what an odd, joyful yet uneasy experience it was. Everything was still there, the city as messed up as ever, roadwork everywhere…like someone had simply hit pause. Emptier, however. So much emptier. My reflexes came back, almost instantly. I’d expected exhilaration, vertigo, but found calm focus instead. Which is fine but almost anticlimactic. I walked the city for a little over two hours, around 10 km, and came home with a mean blister on my left foot; my body’s way of rebelling after such a long time. But it did feel…normal.
A few hours later we learned Anais’s class was now shut down due to several confirmed cases of COVID-19, this time with the UK variant. So our entire family is now (again) confined for 14 days unless she gets a negative test result. We’ll know either today or tomorrow. Yup, the city was the same…but a lot has changed. … Monday when I picked up Jacob from his part-time job he broke down in tears in the car: a friend of his, from primary school, had committed suicide last Saturday. I can’t even believe I’m writing those words. He’d heard about it earlier in the day. They weren't seeing much of each other anymore but had kept in touch, once in awhile. Sixteen fucking years-old. I remember the boy from birthdays, I remember his laugh, his longish hair and glasses. I can still picture him running around, high on a sugar rush. This hit home. As parents you can only be there and offer comfort. You can only hope your kids understand life always gets better, eventually—no matter how dark it may seem at any given moment. Make sure they know nothing they do or say will ever change the way you feel about them, despite jokes about how annoying they can be at times. You can only hope they’ll come to you in their hour of need. Sorry to lay this on you. I needed to get it off my chest and this is a more private space than the blog. … Last tidbit: in the previous email I mentioned the return to Daylight Savings Time and wrote “this means more sunlight in the morning, a bit less in the evening”. Well, that was wrong. It’s the other way around isn’t it? Thx to Eric for pointing this out. Although it does make my point regarding how much of a mind f&^$ this shift always is ;) On to this week’s links.
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