sketchbook: Sunday 26 February 2012

SUN 26 FEB 2012 ca. 2:00 pm SEAWALL FALSE CREEK

The cold rolled steel of the bench on my backside. Wan sun falls on the brick pavers set in a herringbone pattern; shadows are long; the bricks are outlined trimly in moss. Behind us: Yaletown: where eagles float over high-rises. Before us: a marina, where white-hulled launches ride at their concrete floats.

"There's a seal!" says Kimmie, sitting beside me.

People troop by, walking tiny dogs and absorbedly fiddling one-handed with mobile phones. A young guy runs past, panting so hard that he vocalizes, uttering cries of exertion, his long hair flying behind him.

An old man goes the other way, blowing his nose wetly into a handkerchief.

Off to our left: residential high-rises, snap-together grids of greenish windows. And beyond the boats: the long low concrete arc of the Cambie Bridge. And above all: great amorphous masses of cloud, shaded like gulls' plumage.

Kimmie is chuckling at the dogs going by: they are all dressed in fitted sweaters of different colors and styles, and the dogs are all of expensive breeds. This is Yaletown.

Off to our right the cloud is darker and hangs like smoke over the stepped low-rises on the south shore. The water between is green, and rippled like old-style frosted glass.