cathy i'm lost, i said, though i knew she was sleeping

montreal, laurier ouest and avenue du parc. on this corner the PA, my old grocery store from my old life. julie asked me this morning if being here was a too-large reminder of d. i hadn't thought about it, had willed myself not to think about it. i'm wanting to stare through the ghosts of this city and see instead where it lives in me as home. i watched the city approach from dorval on, montreal by train - triplexes, factories. over the river, south of the market. the gentrification of rundown buildings - lofts with grand curtains behind facades that wear washed out advertisements for sugar, for machinery parts, for meat packers, like old denim. i'm home, i think, say silently to the ribbons of highway, the atwater tunnel, the urban playgrounds full of unattended children on a tuesday night. the cross on mount royal from this window - from the side, it's all scaffolding and naked and unlit in the rainy grey of this end of april morning.

i used to pass this corner every day on my way home from work. stop into the PA, me and d. and katie. we walked our bikes, or else it was winter, and we didn't have them at all. but we'd almost always break at the PA, for yogurt, cheese, veggie pate, and those improbably red tomatoes in the middle of february. that was before i moved to BC where the gregariousness of tomatoes is never improbable.

at this corner, from julie's window: the red striped bus stop, traffic light, the croque en bol pet store, where i used to buy food for lady, treats for camille. the banque laurentienne, and across the street that upscale vietnamese restaurant, chez van. i've never seen anyone in there. and i've never been. i can't see it but i know the banque de montreal is kitty corner, its wheelchair access ramp strewn with bus commuters, though maybe not today, in the rain. under this building and in front, the starbucks. the only freestanding one in the city, or maybe only the first now. there was a protest to keep it out when it first opened 5 years ago, but now i notice that it's full of happy sipping people in familiar low light and cherry wood accents. the funny thing is that laudan used to work there, and she said that in the mornings, when it was new, the starbucks used to be a meeting joint to michael - the artist, the street man with the cart of animals - 2 dogs, a cat, some pigeons - and an assortment of other odd montreal characters. i learned that michael had an apartment. he just chose not to live there. i wonder if now that the starbucks has established itself, if they let those folk in any more. i like picturing that - a table full of well-lived-in people, the city staining their skin, animated and alive, boisterous, over grande lattes in the starbucks. if only it was that kind of place still.