Linger
Shirin says it takes her a while to feel awake in the mornings, and she takes her time. As wide as her smile is her heart, this femme extraordinaire came into my life via my yellow tuque -for which she wrote a little poem. I imagine Shirin opening her big drowsy eyes, the vinyls from the night before in the living room, the vintage cookbooks in her kitchen... How still is everything in the morning. Sweet temptation of lingering.
When I wake up these days, it is usually to the sound of someone playing the piano across the back alley my bedroom overlooks. Nothing like a back alley 'une ruelle' in Montreal in the summer. La ruelle, that wonderful hideout between streets filled with cars, noise and speed. In the Plateau, the pattern is one street followed by a ruelle, then another street, another ruelle. To counterbalance the roar of motorized vehicles, the rush of our anxious civilization, ruelle lingers. The leaves on the giant tree rustle, some sleepy head pops up on a balcony, a couple bike through very slowly, in idle chatter. It is a village within the city, unlike nicely trimmed lawns in individual back yards. Ruelle is a mini jungle or bushes, a negligent assemblage. When I wake up to it, naturally I am drawn to its loitering. Otherwise I am a super efficient person who takes showers in less than five minutes and zooms out the door and really could't have cared less about watching a cat on the loose chasing a squirrel or the crows fighting over a narrow branch or the glitter on winding staircases.
My mother -as I observe the foam on the coffee going down the coffee press- lingers, too. She, in a way, paved the way to her daughter's slow-motion appreciation of life as it passes, wearing that blue cotton dress in the garden of her semi detached house in Izmir, tending to the leaves of the lemon tree, keeping an eye on the tea she's brewing, suddenly distracted by the smell of the jasmine. That I didn't inherit her sharp analytic mind but her romantic procrastination is one of the many ironies of my life. My mother stuffs vine leaves in approximately twice the time as my aunt performing the same activity. She sees a smaller leaf, makes a mini-dolma and calls out to me, because it is a pleasure to look at a mini dolma and watch her daughter pop it in her mouth. Cats linger, kids linger, lovers linger. Let's non-do it. Let's linger.
When I wake up these days, it is usually to the sound of someone playing the piano across the back alley my bedroom overlooks. Nothing like a back alley 'une ruelle' in Montreal in the summer. La ruelle, that wonderful hideout between streets filled with cars, noise and speed. In the Plateau, the pattern is one street followed by a ruelle, then another street, another ruelle. To counterbalance the roar of motorized vehicles, the rush of our anxious civilization, ruelle lingers. The leaves on the giant tree rustle, some sleepy head pops up on a balcony, a couple bike through very slowly, in idle chatter. It is a village within the city, unlike nicely trimmed lawns in individual back yards. Ruelle is a mini jungle or bushes, a negligent assemblage. When I wake up to it, naturally I am drawn to its loitering. Otherwise I am a super efficient person who takes showers in less than five minutes and zooms out the door and really could't have cared less about watching a cat on the loose chasing a squirrel or the crows fighting over a narrow branch or the glitter on winding staircases.
My mother -as I observe the foam on the coffee going down the coffee press- lingers, too. She, in a way, paved the way to her daughter's slow-motion appreciation of life as it passes, wearing that blue cotton dress in the garden of her semi detached house in Izmir, tending to the leaves of the lemon tree, keeping an eye on the tea she's brewing, suddenly distracted by the smell of the jasmine. That I didn't inherit her sharp analytic mind but her romantic procrastination is one of the many ironies of my life. My mother stuffs vine leaves in approximately twice the time as my aunt performing the same activity. She sees a smaller leaf, makes a mini-dolma and calls out to me, because it is a pleasure to look at a mini dolma and watch her daughter pop it in her mouth. Cats linger, kids linger, lovers linger. Let's non-do it. Let's linger.
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