China Lily factory sign, Leslieville

The bottle came out when we ate stirfry with rice. Its elongated, giraffe-like neck stretched upwards from a fat base stickered over with the distinguishing canary yellow and black label. The inky blackness of the bottle’s contents stained the glass and the inside of the plastic cap a muddy brown, while sticky dribbles from wayward shakes adhered ...
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Bathtub basil planter

I snapped this shot in an alleyway just north of Trinity Bellwoods Park during Toronto’s 2007 Alley Jaunt event. I was visiting Michael and the rest of the Wireless Toronto Art Squad and their installation of network “music” and poetry. On the Sunday afternoon, the two of us had slipped away for ...
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Forsythia blossoms, Broadview Avenue

To my mind, forsythia is the quintessence of spring. One of these flowering shrubs grew in the backyard of my first childhood home, and my mom would bring a branch into the house the moment the screaming-yellow flowers popped open. Seeing that spray of blossoms in the kitchen or on the dining-room table was a signal: It was ...
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Snow-covered benches in Riverdale Park, beside Bridgepoint Health Centre

After a cup of coffee this morning, I slid my wool-socked feet into my boots and zipped up my parka all the way to my chin. I walked out into the clean, newly white day and trudged through Riverdale Park, stopping to say hello to Silver and watch children zipping down ...
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Cloud streets*

70 Wynford Drive, Don Mills, looking southeast | Tuesday, September 4, 2007, 9:08 a.m.

I am an unflagging proponent of public transit, but damn. The weather has turned while I have been inside for this entire late-November day and as I stand in the cone of orange glow cast by the light standard I realize that my long-sleeved t-shirt and ...
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Broadview Mansions sidewalk mosaic, Riverdale

“Oh … Shit.”

In addition to her cry and the dull thud that sounded as Lorraine’s body slammed into the concrete, there was the metallic jangle of her keys as they arced through the air and landed out of reach on the path ahead, and the rattle made by the contents of her black faux–patent leather handbag — ...
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Leaves turning in Riverdale Park

Though this is the third autumn I’ve spent in South Riverdale, on the edge of the Don Valley, the seasonal colour change is a revelation every time.

I usually walk home from Broadview Station after work each night, and for the past two weeks I’ve tripped over cracks in the sidewalk, veered off the sidewalk altogether, or nearly ...
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Neighbourhood network poetry: “Fort Awesome,” by Jodi

For one weekend in August, an invisible facet of the Trinity Bellwoods neighbourhood in Toronto’s west end became tangible — mapped, manipulable, audible. And all it took to render the unseen visible was a WiFi-equipped PDA, a GPS data logger, a couple of laptops, some nifty programming, and the imaginations of a handful of good-looking ...
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“You’re walking through poetry” bench, Trinity Bellwoods Park

For a blog that started out as a celebration of a daily view beyond Toronto’s city limits, posts about my own backyard find their way into this space more often than I would have thought. But the streets, back lanes, alleyways, and courtyards in this neighbourhood hold an infinity of stories, and ...
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“R” graffito, Lower Don Recreation Trail

It is summer, so Ronny’s white plastic deck chair is out for the season. I see him sitting in it every night on my way home from work. I round the corner to walk three-quarters of the street’s length home and there he is, in the shade of the northside building’s roof overhang, facing the street, ...
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