Slow motion
The weather is unusually mild in Montreal. All in all, winter has no hold on the city’s oily asphalt, which nevertheless continues to run its course.
My own days are in a hurry; the customers all want everything for yesterday, and they try to bury as much as possible the next day before it is born. Already an early morning wake-up call, because I had to go to the CLSC for my annual blood test. Back home, and a day to put out the multiple fires initiated by my clients. I am privileged not to have to look for work, it comes to me effortlessly. I like my job. In some circles, they call me The Machine because I know how to produce quickly and efficiently.
There is certainly a physical and mental blow to this sometimes frantic production. And yesterday, I had to take proper breaths to calm both my nerves and my heart. Since it was Wednesday-pizza (a small communal tradition at home [my friends downstairs, and I]), I went to get some wine at the end of the day. The streets at rush hour are lively, too much maybe. Few people smile, they also have been in a hurry like lemons and what they have left of their energy will be used to drive them home wisely, where they will probably fall asleep very quickly on their couch. Oh! Life certainly doesn’t end at 9 to 5. Many of them will have their 5 to 7, their little hour of enjoyment, their great happiness in the theatre, the cinema or in their bed. Life goes on, and it sometimes seems so fast, so angry.
Since the SAQ branch is far enough to take the metro when I’m in a hurry but close enough to walk, I opted, given the mild weather, for walking.
I took my time, slowed down the pressure, listened to my life crossing the street, watched a man with an intoxicating beard to my eyes, a woman with visible fatigue dragging two recalcitrant paws, another man, old, with legs so bewildering that one imagined him falling there, like a branch in freezing rain. Different routes, different speeds.
When I returned, I contemplated the evolution of the construction of these new condos, which will soon suffocate the church that remained in the center of the complex. The workers were already gone. I saw a beautiful light there. Click, click with my camera.
It was raining a little. I hastened to walk because you have to be careful of quiet water.
The pizza was good with my friends on the ground floor. They were tired, already falling asleep on the couch. I went back up, got a little angry, because I was still being asked to hurry for something, worked again since my workload has become a big forest that I have to cut down. Guy The Machine. A friend told me to go to bed because I was getting stupid.
What I did. In short, the slowness escapes me. Let us give thanks to the relentless sleep that rarely accepts to be disturbed in its schedule.
