June 28, 2004

I wanted to spend the weekend in Sarnia with my beautiful people, but the dull ache in my legs made the idea of biking another desperate 230 km rather unappealing. Because Kitchener is no place to spend a Sunday, I yearned to go somewhere closer.

“Let’s bike South,” I said, and in the middle of the day we headed towards Paris on the Trans Canada Trail. The trail to Paris is one uninterrupted corridor of greenery. Speeding down the gravel paths with the river in our eyes and adrenaline rushing through our veins, we reached Paris in two hours and ate lunch by the river’s side.

Paris, Ontario, is a city of rivers, forests, and strong women. From where we were sitting we could see a woman single-handedly moving canoes down to the river, balancing them delicately on her head.

Paris is also the centre of everything. We realized this while walking downtown eating ice cream. Everything flows through Paris: there two rivers join, there trains and traffic flow ceaselessly carrying armies of travelers on their way to nowhere. Even a five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon the small streets are choked by traffic and trains howl in the distance. Boats drift on the rivers, and trails bring in people on bikes and on foot.

We were merely particles floating through the lush and curvy landscape of the city, just like everyone else. A winding road took us to the top of Paris, and through the forest beneath us we saw the city buzzing with life.

Paris is considered the prettiest town in Ontario — its forests and rivers make it spectacular. Sitting in the shade on top of the hill, I dreamt of drifting someday on my raft through Paris on my way to Brantford. The city makes you crazy like that, and indulging my craziness, my friend lent me his shoulders so I could climb a tree and see everything.

I saw nothing. It’s impossible to climb trees shoeless, and it’s also impossible to get down. I felt silly stuck on my sturdy branch, unable to go up or down.

“Karma’s a bitch,” I said. “On my way back from Toronto I passed some kids who were trying to get a cat down from a tree. They were shouting at the cat, encouraging it to get down. I should have stopped to help them, but I didn’t. This is probably payback for not helping those kids — I’m stuck on a branch like their cat.”

It took me a good ten minutes to inch my way down the tree, skin scratched and ego bruised. We walked back towards the city, and sped away from Paris towards the sunset.

Somewhere along the endless gravel path between Paris and Cambridge, I pulled a muscled in my right leg and sighed. We biked back gingerly, stopping at abandoned buildings along the way. Because broken windows excite me in strange ways, I shed my clothes so I could move more comfortably with my hard-on while taking pictures. Pain was shattered in one brief moment of nakedness and beauty.

And after biking 100 km in a couple of hours, after having seen the centre of everything and windows broken in the sunset, I happily collapsed on my bed and slept for eleven hours.