v i c t o r i a

This past weekend, I took a trip back home to Kitchener to celebrate my birthday; while there, my boyfriend Josh and I paid a quick visit to Victoria Park. We went on a whim after dinner, to the sprawling lawns nestled in the heart of downtown, with its murky waterways and arching bridges. 

It was just before dusk when we arrived; families with young children were winding down their playful days and the sun was setting slowly in a cotton-candy coloured sky. We wandered past small copses of flowering trees and over the lazy curve of an aforementioned bridge; the wooden planks beneath our feet clunked with each step. In the distance, a lone swan was hunkered down on the shore of the small island in the little lake. We stepped casually closer along the edge of the dark water in hopes of snapping a photo of the bird, which had been drawn to the bank by a little girl throwing bread crumbs.

Eventually, the swan drifted over to where we were standing; it stared at us with black, glistening eyes, gliding to and fro. While Josh crouched down to photography the gigantic beauty, I began to panic; I was convinced that the swan would suddenly hop out of the water full of squawking rage and attack. As Sue Townsend repeatedly reminds in Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction, "a swan can break a man's arm".

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Once near Christmastime, I went with my family to Victoria Park after dark to see the holiday light displays. Driven by tween logic, I wore shiny, impractical shoes that night; I slipped on ice, ripped my tights and cried.

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I met a date on the playground there, two New Years Days ago; it was a secret rendez-vous, a naively optimistic rebound. The park was deserted, the city quiet and closed. We met, hugged and shuffled awkwardly along the damp wooden structure in unseasonably warm winter mist; we talked nervously while wandering the park because there was no where else to go.