Urban Road Trip
Life in the city is an accumulation of subtle movements along established routes, creating a network of interconnected lines not unlike the thin markings on a conventional map. These lines steadily thicken, flesh out, acquire the substantial dimensions of experience. During the many stages of discovering a city, we are sometimes startled into self-knowledge.
There are doors which, when opened, alter the perspective. Some are immediately inviting - the maquillage familiar, like something you remember from a dream.
Some are portals which you are compelled to step through, marveling at the pleasure which you get from the force of entry, at the ensuing transformation.
Some doors communicate all of the elements of the story of life once lived within; though you pass by them keyless, there’s a part of you which believes that the narrative, although no longer accessible to you, continues.
The street is inhabited by countless characters who undress, change costume according to someone’s whims. A friend reassures you that a person’s essence doesn’t change.
There are road signs, warnings, mirrors, which you decipher according to some instinct. These not only point at the physical landscape but are in tune with the laws of the internal compass.
There is the constant mathematical equation of existence, which keeps you warm and awake long hours at night.
There are places which you never visit because they have a long line-up, but which nevertheless end up sewn into the quilt.
Some places which you visit charge a rate you can’t afford, which you pay anyway.
Colours can not only be seen but experienced; you register them in the full range of euphoria, from bliss to anguish. A helpful friend hypothesizes that this either heralds increased creativity and receptiveness, or foreshadows madness.
The machinery of upheaval is visible overhead, a reminder that you inhabit an expressive community of seekers.
In the early morning quiet, before the 501 moves into “frequent service,” the walls surprise with their colour and shabbiness, are warm to the touch.
The city’s systems are strung together by way of a silk web, appealing in an unconventional manner that’s meaningless to the uninitiated.
There are many ways to traverse a city. One can be a collector, a documenter, a scribe; a keeper of trinkets, the disposer of treasure.
The advantage of perspective: things look different from every angle, but the intimate knowledge of one’s surroundings, necessitating a journey for which maps need to be constructed from precious resources, allows for the distillation of essence.
Iza Bryniarska is a writer and editor from Toronto who is currently living in Montreal. It’s only because she happens to be living in another city that she won’t be at the Gadzooks meet and greet on June 3 at the Victory Café. But she will be there in spirit. So, come meet the spirit of Iza!