Come on, I’ll take you for a ride down my alley. It is only a humble little section, to travel it from north to south lasts the time of a song. However, you will see that while strolling there, one can see beating the heart of the city and the world.
First, you should know that here, it’s the cats who sign the chapters of history. A bit like the cohorts of students in secondary schools. The current chapter is taken care of by young cats who are learning to make a place for themselves among the aging tagger tomcats who tolerate them when they cross paths with them during their rounds.
Listen. Do you hear ? This Slavic language is Ukrainian. This proud little boy on his bike and his mother who greeted us in French with an elegant accent come from a family of refugees. They have temporarily taken up residence not far from here — the children and the women at least, because the men have remained in Ukraine to fight, the mother told us. I hope that the alley, this cocoon, will soothe them as it soothes me.
We could offer them a small tub of pear butter, the ones that grow at the neighbors three houses from here. Look, pears are starting to crash on the asphalt! It’s time to pick them, don’t miss the momentum, because they only grow every two years… It had been a spontaneous project between neighbors in the fall of 2020. Some had taken out the ladder to be able to get the tallest ones, I had ripened the fruits, until the pears are ready to be cooked, with a little maple and sweet clover, a delight on toast. We shared that with the neighborhood. Everyone feasted.
Do you see the gentleman walking the little white dog? It is his pear tree. Yes, it is true that they are advancing cautiously; that’s because the little dog, a now very old retired agility star, is deaf and blind. His master is very caring by his side. “We owe him that,” he told me.
My neighborhood, a former haunt of Shop Angus workers, is increasingly marked by gentrification. Look at this construction site. The new owners only kept the facade of the old building. We can follow the transformation, or rather the construction from scratch (since everything was demolished), on Instagram with glitter effects. “Thank you to the neighbors for their patience! we read. But do we really have a choice? If I ever leave town, it’ll be because of the noise. The cranes going around making a crazy racket in the alley, the brick dust on the table where I like to sit to write on the terrace, the bad dance music that the guys on the construction site listen to at the top of their voices… and I’m not even talking about the diverted air corridors that now pass over my alley, sometimes causing the walls of my house to vibrate… These intrusive noises will probably one day get the better of my enthusiasm.
Are you waiting for me for a minute? I have to drop off a few books with this thriller-devouring neighbor who collects Michael Connellys. Me, I have all the Patricia Highsmiths, so we make
trades.
In an alley not far from here, in addition to the croque-books, there is a “wish box” guarded by a blue-bearded garden gnome. The other day I stuck my hand in the box to read the vows—yes, that’s very indiscreet of me. Here is what I read about the small origami folded papers:
I would like that the pollution does not exist and also the hardly.
I hope with all my heart to have a dog who can be my friend.
I want to be Spider-Man.
I am coming to the end of this text, but we are not yet at the end of the alley. I haven’t had time to tell you about the spectacular cymbalization of the male cicadas in August, nor about my cross-country ski trips in the alleys after the storms. I haven’t even given you the recipe for stuffing the leaves of the vine that runs over the fence, nor told the heartbreaking story of the female cardinal who, after getting drunk on the sugar from the grapes of said vine, had fallen into the clutches of my neighbour’s tabby tomcat… Come back and have a look from time to time, I’ll tell you about it.