June 20, 2004

I didn’t know how to leave Toronto.

“Take the second street on the right, then straight on till morning,” Zorianna’s father told me before I got on my bicycle. And after twelve hours of excruciating pain and joy, I arrived home with throbbing limbs and vague glimmers of understanding.

In Georgetown, pain sliced its way through my legs with paralysing fury. My body felt deeply violated by the strong winds that blew in my face and the hill that I was climbing.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I screamed, throwing a temper tantrum at the top of the hill when my bike broke down. It took me a few seconds to realize that I had no control over anything and that the only thing I could do was to keep moving.

“Whatever will be, will be …”

It’s silly to challenge what you cannot change. So I ignored pain and wind, and biked on the King’s highway at sunset, overwhelmed by the beauty of the asphalt and the fields. On Sunday evenings the highway is serpentine and empty and every flash of light uncovers miracles: horses feeding in fields of clover; broken trucks and cottages in tall grass; infinite shades of green. At sunset, the factories in Guelph are orgasmic.

Moving gingerly through all that beauty gave me plenty of time to think about Toronto and mad days I spent there. And I discovered how desperately I wanted to live.

Soon I will tell you all about the sacrificial fires and the priestess of flesh…