Urban Diner

I'm back in my beloved West End.

You know, not until I come back here do I miss it and then when I see it, when I drive along Pacific and look out to the ocean with the freighters in Georgia Straight and all the joggers and rollerbladers and I drive down Denman and know every single shop and what's in it, the ones that are gross and the ones I liked to eat in, I start letting out little pained expressions of yearning because I'm positively nostalgic and wistful.

I don't want to come back but I never didn't like it. I didn't leave because I didn't like it.

The view from Dee's apartment looks down across Robson into Coal Harbour, across to the Rowing Club in Stanley Park and towering above it all, Grouse Mountain. I can see the cut all lit up.

The float planes are arriving from where I've just come from - Salt Spring.

Cities make you pay attention. When I"m on Salt Spring I sometimes feel like I'm meditating even when I'm awake. It's as if the activity of the city simulates the snapping of fingers. Your attention gets jolted from this to that, her to him, a noise, lights, action, camera. Your mind is constantly in action, forced to pay attention, to make decisions, to watch out, all those shop windows calling out in their corporate neediness.

Lately, I've been worried that I might get really dozed out living there. I might get stupid. I know that sounds, well, stupid, but the brain needs feeding. And lately, there, my brain has been hungry.