thoughts from saturday

I have always loved the night -- its stillness, its mystery, its black, encompassing comfort. Life asleep and gently stirring. When I moved here to Toronto from Windsor two years ago to attend the journalism program at Ryerson University, I told friends and family that I felt safe walking its downtown streets at night. Not unlike New York City, there were crowds on the streets, crowds of comfort, so that exiting a club at closing time and walking home alone, was not a questionable thing to do.

Saturday night I went to the Silver Dollar Room with my friend Andrew to hear one of our favourite groups, the Silver Hearts play with Andre Ethier. As I walked home in the early morning hours, I found myself aware of fear and uncertainty. As the saying goes, apparently it was Franklin D. Roosevelt: "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I have often believed that fear can be spotted and felt far off, and that a best defense is to walk carefree, or feign walking carefree. Feigning it, being on the alert and aware, is not the same though, and it is a sad reality right now.

Some more congenial thoughts.

Andrew ran into a friend of his at the Silver Dollar, with whom he worked at a summer camp more than ten years previously. These guys had not seen each other in ten years or so, yet they picked up as if they had talked yesterday. They bought each other drinks all night. I think this is something that is singularly part of the male psyche -- this ability to carry on and connect so easily and instantly. Women need to know all the intimate details, about where you've been, where are you now.

My brother, who has just turned 50, still plays sports with friends from high school. They just meet up. I am fascinated by this ability and admire it and am mystified as to how easily men do it.