Siren Song

When I'm in the city, I walk really fast. My stance is as follows: shoulders back/eyes up/ear to the ground. A fusion of scents wakes my senses as well as any good jolt of caffeine as I wind my way through the mazes of pavement. Italian, Greek, Japanese, Lebanese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Korean. Raw and cooked and barbecued and braised and stewed and skewered. Meats and chickpeas and yogurt and coconut and garlic and coriander and chiles and cumin infuse the air. Vivid colours and smells and flavours and goodness all marinating together in a single city block.

Book stores. Market stalls. Fountains. Tattoo parlours. Traffic lights. Gastropubs. City buses. Coffee shops. Apothecaries. Shoe stores. Delis. Corner stores. Gas stations. Street lights. Subway stops. Buskers. Luxury hotels. Bakeries. Hair salons. Record stores.

The people that pass by me are diverse. Languages, accents, fashion, gait, stupors, struts and shuffles are as varied as the faces I look into. As I walk, I ponder this way of life that consists of brushing past people and spending just a second or two in the same place at the same time. We are all on our way somewhere to gether and then in an instant, we pass each other and are gone.

The shadows that jut out from the feet of giant structures hold me in their protective grasp. I look longingly at the architectural details of old apartment buildings with their fourteen foot ceilings and original hardwood floors and views of a parking lot. Grafitti catches my eye, beautiful as a rainbow as it cuts through the grey. I fall asleep to the siren song lullabies of the streets that surround me as the city embraces me and lulls me off to sleep.

You can walk down the street where I live now and some days not a single person will pass you by. There's the familiar grey barn to the left, the invisible animals who find their hiding spots nestled among leaves and hollowed out trees, and drunken beer cans resting on the sides of the road folded inwards on themselves in the dusty gravel. In theory, you could run down the street stark naked for a short moment hooting like a banshee and chances are fair to good that no one would be even the wiser. You might see the odd car, receive the odd nod of the head or the two-finger dashboard salute, but in general, this place is pretty quiet.

Bullrushes. Ducks. Fresh air. Horses. Manure. Regulars. Mailboxes. Empty roads. Sunshine. Frogs. Tractors. Clouds. Treetops. Open spaces. Squirrels. Vegetables. Woods. Quiet.

Too much quiet.

I sit in my backyard and it's just the forests that surround me on either side, the crackling grass under my feet, the gigantic garden plot in front of me, the sun on my face. The birds flitting to and from the feeder are more or less my main vein of visual stimulation.

To some people, this country life would be paradise, but to me all of the quiet makes me too instrospective, too aware of my own thoughts. It's all too much contrast to the noise in my head. It makes me yearn for a taste of my heart's true influence: the city.

Sometimes I walk for miles out here. I'm haven't quite figured out if I'm trying to find myself or if I'm running away. I was on my way somewhere with everyone, and then in an instant everyone was gone. Maybe I went too far.