June 20, 2005

Show me how to hold my head in the rain and I’ll teach you to weep.

Via Rail dropped me off in Windsor on a day with too many clouds; I threw my knapsack over my shoulder and started walking through the city hungry for food and internet access. Windsor made me feel like a stranger. I felt lost until I found a Greek restaurant with wide-open windows and went in to eat.

The sign on the door read “take it or leave it,” and my waitress, whose name was Heather, thought it was a riot. Heather brought me burgers and coffee and burnt her hand in the process. I was her only customer that day and she sat across from me as I bit into my burger and we talked.

“How do I get to the university?” I asked.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“What gave it away?”

The burger was juicy and tasted like real cow, not like that mystery meat they serve elsewhere. Heather told where to go while squeezing ice into her hand. Windsor is a miniature version of a scary Detroit, she said; everything is run down and desolate and the people stared at you with longing and strange emptiness in their eyes. The city also has the highest number of strip joints per-capita. I told her that was there for a conference … on strippers.

An hour slipped by as we talked, and then I grabbed my bag again and jumped out her window. She waved goodbye. Three hours later, my legs and shoulders were killing me and I still hadn’t found the campus. I decided that walking is terribly inefficient — we should all have wheels on our shoulders.

That’s why as soon as I got rid of my baggage in my hotel room, I headed towards Canadian Tire to buy a scooter. “Built for people on the move,” the advertisement said. And that scooter certainly moved me all along the river’s edge in the twilight hour. I saw bridges of iron and smiled.

In the dark, Windsor sparkles like a beautiful stranger.