Pleasures

Is Rose-coloured going down to once-a-week posting? Maybe. It’s been really hectic around here. I made this great plan about the alternating literary/non-literary posts and then it immediately went out the window due to LIFE. But it’s nothing bad this time around—I don’t have the plague and the dishwasher didn’t explode or anything like that (touch wood). It’s just the universe and everything, keeping me busy. But I skipped the non-literary post last week and I really am not ready to write another literary one now, so…I’m not going to. Here’s where we are, with what I’ve got.

It’s May, my birth month. I have never officially done a whole month of celebration and I’m not officially doing one now, but in my heart I am. It was a LONG BAD winter. So I’m trying to do something a little bit delicious every day in May. So far:

May 1: Went to Hot Docs and saw My Boyfriend the Fascist. I don’t really know how people do festivals properly—research all the movies properly, see a bunch, compare them all and pick their favourite. Mark read the catalogue and picked one, it was a huge hassle to get there in the rain, but at least it was really quite good. A film about how hard it is to keep talking about politics when we disagree, but what a gift it is when we can do so.

May 2: Got takeout sushi on the way home from the grocery store after work. I never do not want to eat takeout sushi.

May 3: The launch day of the Inkspire writer fellowship program. It was a long afternoon of learning, bonding, and snacks. but really fun. It was very cool to meet the new fellows and learn about what they hope to accomplish in the program. The best gift to this about-to-be-47-year-old is to help young people a tiny bit in achieving their writing dreams, but an unlooked for bonus was that a number of them mistook me for one of their own in their 18-to-24-year-old program and asked me about MY plans for the fellowship. I think this is more about fish not knowing what air is and them not knowing what a 47-year-old looks like than my inherent youthfulness but I WILL TAKE IT.

May 4: Ok, mainly I just went to the gym and did chores today but I did sleep in and eat some wasabi peas today and it has been a nice day, and in fact I’m writing this right now instead of dealing with some US tax forms.

In fact, I have been noticing there have been a lot of nice days recently. Ever since I stopped having bronchitis and my torn intercostal muscle healed and also there stopped being ice underfoot, every day seems bursting with possibility. Don’t get me wrong, it has been a rough 2025 so far in many ways, and I’m not of the blessing-counting persuasion, but the last few weeks have had so many nice things in them. To whit:

• so many good sunrises. The sunsets from our window are always good but there’s a small part of the year when I’m out on the street heading for the gym at sunrise and I get to see them, and those are also excellent. I sadly suspect that the reason the sunrises/sets in this neighbourhood are so good is the exhaust fumes from the 401 but whatever, somehow we get the beauty.

• group chats and other forms of texting. Man, I love hearing from people. I can’t help but feel that my friends are especially excellent at texting. I suppose everyone feels that way, that’s why we have the friends we have. A few weeks ago, I had some (also excellent) friends over for dinner and during the evening I heard my phone pinging but ignored it because I am good host. When everyone had left, I checked it and had over FIFTY texts, in several threads. These were about shoes, dogs, books and weird health stuff—NEWS I LOVE and can use. Exactly what I want.

• Buds and blooms and blossoms. There are more blooming trees in Toronto than in Mount Hope or Montreal, or I notice them more when I lived in other places. Maybe I’m just getting more aware of beauty as I age. Cherry trees, magnolia, Japanese plum, even some misplaced apple trees right on the street. Just so very pretty and eager to get started on spring…like me.

• relaxed Mark. Mark has not had a job in two months and while obviously that is not ideal, Mark has had tonnes of rest and leisure time for two months, which is great. Whatever extra activity or boring story I have in mind, Mark is up for it. I get as much of his undivided attention as I want, because he is getting everything he wants to do done every day and is never in a rush. It is SO NICE. He still regularly forgets where I’m going/what’s going on, but in general, he’s available for whatever, whenever, which is my dream come true.

• showers. I have been having a lot of neck and back pain lately and just appreciating getting into a hot shower so much. It feels great on my neck and back. I can adjust the temperature exactly the way I want it, which does not work in the rest of my home. I never want to forget how much I love showers!

• the pool in the morning. I used to write a lot about the old free community centre pool I went to, the eccentric characters, the odd locker room interactions, the entitlement people brought to a free service. Now there is no free community centre near me and I pay a lot of money to go to a gym pool and nothing is as interesting—people mainly keep to themselves, everything is pretty serene, there are still instances of entitlement but mainly, it’s all fine. BUT I STILL LOVE EVERY MOMENT OF IT. Any pool, any time. Per the earlier line item about the sunrise, we have now reached the portion of the year where the sun comes through the big windows in the pool complex and makes glimmering wavy glimmering ripples on the floor of the pool and I wait for that moment every swim and every time, it comes slightly earlier.

• In case you think nothing odd ever happens anymore…a couple weeks ago, I hear a knock at the front door, already unusual, and then Mark talking to someone and then he called for me??? It was my elderly neighbour in her bathrobe and she had tangled her hairbrush in her hair??? She was with another elderly neighbour, who said she had tried to help her for ten minutes but now had to go out, so was turning her over to me. I asked Mark later if he had tried to help and he said they’d wanted no truck with him and asked specifically for me. Quote: “I think it was gender-based.” We don’t know any of the neighbours beyond very general pleasantries about the weather and maybe a word or two about the condo board, so an interaction with someone in a bathrobe where I pulled her hair was really something. Also: I could not help her!! And I really tried!! I cannot imagine how she got the hairbrush so tightly wound into her hair, but also her hair was dyed what looked in that light, at least, to be a sort of deep navy and was soft as a baby’s. I was sure I was going to accidentally rip it out of her skull. Finally, we were both sort of dismayed and Evan had taken the chance of the open door to spring for freedom (the woman would not come in so we were half in the hallway) so she told me to cut the brush out (Quote: “What, I’m going to live like this?”) I asked Mark to get me some scissors and he brought the kitchen sheers so I saw why they didn’t want a man to help—I went and got a small pair of craft scissors and delicately cut as near the brush bristles as I could, but the poor woman still lost a lot of hair. She was very sweet about it and did not seem extremely upset, and thanked me, though I sort of felt like a failure. I hope we can chat again under less fraught circumstances, though I have not seen her since!

  
  I hope your spring is going well, too, friends. What a glorious and weird time it is out there, and in here, and in general.