I was going stir crazy in my apartment, which I tend to at the oddest hours, and decided that midnight was the perfect time to go strolling around a nearby neighborhood. It wasn’t actually my intention to go to a strange place, but I got outside the back door of my building and instead of heading straight ahead, toward the forks and over the bridge to St. Boniface, or taking a right and going down by the river and then over another bridge into Osborne village, I went right and back, over Osborne and towards Wolseley.
Crossing a parking lot I used to cross in the opposite direction all the time, when I lived up on Sherbrook in my second year of university, a song came on my discman that I used to listen to back in those days, back in my clubbing days. It felt kind of strange. It was also probably why I kept on walking and didn’t go right home again, because my mind started spinning off and I didn’t want it to stop. That’s what walking is for, for me, after all.
It was surprisingly easy to get lost, and I didn’t care. There are some gorgeous buildings in this area, big old houses that have been broken up into apartments. I had a friend who lived in this area once, in one of those houses, though I can’t remember quite which one since I was only there a couple of times. My McDonald’s-working self coveted that apartment something fierce.
I had no idea where I was until I stumbled across the place where I worked on a short film years ago. Actually, I still didn’t know quite where I was, but I knew what I was close to and not far past it I recognized a street name (one street over from an apartment I used to live in, but many blocks down). I turned and started toward the river, figuring I was pretty close to the bridge and the hospital. It was still barely raining, not even uncomfortable at all, but then I like the rain, and have happily walked in it when it was fiercely pouring.
I came out of my lost haze into the gates of Middle Gate. I haven’t been by there since last August, and back then I arrived by following a path through the woods by the river, which is an entirely different experience. Middle Gate, along with West Gate and East Gate, is a little enclave of huge old mansions (and a few modern houses that seem very out of place). Majestic mansions with creeping ivy and ornate carved lions decorating the front stairs.
It was probably about 12:30, and as I turned the corner from Middle Gate onto East Gate the rain turned to snow. It was just tiny flakes at first, then became bigger and bigger. It was the kind of snow that you only get here in the fall and spring, the soft, wet, fluffy kind that sticks together into chunks as it falls and then melts the moment it hits the ground. I stopped for a moment and watched it fall past a streetlight, so beautiful.
After that my path led me towards home again, and this time I knew where I was going, more or less, or knew which landmarks to look for. I took and earlier turn up back towards Osborne and passed the curling club that I’ve always thought looked like a Swiss chalet (an actual Swiss chalet, not the restaurant). A number of years ago I was walking along there with Ryan and Jon and we had to call the cops on Ryan’s cell phone (yes, poor college kids had cell phones even back in 96) because some guy was beating on his girlfriend in a car in the parking lot.
And the across Osborne and past the Lege and along the river and home. And to the washroom because wow did I have to pee for the last fifteen minutes or so of the walk. I was out about an hour I think, not bad. And my back didn’t even hurt when I was done, which was a nice change from the usual.
All of it was a nice change from the usual, really.
