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I went to buy some groceries this morning, and on the way there and back I passed one of Roncesvalles' least attractive features...barrels of fish. The delis on this street take advantage of cool weather (not to say cold, which Toronto is not at the moment) to put out buckets and barrels and tables of "fresh" fish. The smell is somewhere between sweaty socks and vomit...not what I'd call appealing. I like fish, for the most part. Well cooked, with some lemon. Or fried and served in a rolled up newspaper, along with chips. I'm not huge on salmon, but then I had a rather odd run-in with one as a child...a cold slab of a thing, staring blankly at nothing, on a table with its side cut open and picked apart into a fleshy mess. (The salmon, not me as a child.) Still, I enjoy even salmon when headless and prepared. But fish on the sidewalk, stinking the place up? Not my bag. Sort of puts me off fish, really. People are a bit like that, when you experience them out on Roncesvalles. Walking up and down the sidewalk, you tend to see people the same way you see the fish...at their worst. Sidewalk etiquette is not humanity's finest accomplishment, especially as Christmas draws near and people are becoming panicked about their shopping and their cooking and making everything perfect the way it is in the magazines and in the special Norman Rockwell Charles Dickens fantasy in my head! So, yeah. You can tell I've been Christmas shopping in a mall recently. And all reports say this isn't even a busy Christmas...oy. Anyhow, as I made my way home today, past jabbing elbows and around speeding bikes (which do not belong on the sidewalk unless the rider is six years old, thank you) and behind people determined to move slower than a tectonic plate, and in front of people determined to pass as if the sidewalk was a freeway, and through cell phone conversations and almost getting clocked by angry gestures (keep your fight to yourselves, please), and around hugely oversized strollers (it's a baby, not a moose), and all encased in the aroma of rotting fresh fish... I stopped. Out of the way, because there's nothing more annoying than someone stopping dead in their tracks on a busy sidewalk, but I stopped. And I breathed. And I looked at the people shuffling by. People who don't seem to notice where they are or who they're pushing and shoving...because they're focused on finding a gift for someone they love, or worried about how much they're spending for Christmas, or trying to remember what ingredients they need to make dinner, or hurting from something entirely unknown to me or anyone else, or wrapped up in hopes and dreams and private joys. Life in a big city can begin to make one dislike humanity. It's very easy to see only the worst of people - the smelly, raw fish part - when you see them fighting for space on the sidewalk. It's tough to remember that they can cook up into something quite pleasant. OK, that's disturbing. And I still don't like street fish. But if you want to be a fisher of men, you have to get used to the smell. |
