Diving Bells and Butterflys and it's COLD.

Is it ever COLD!! My feet are like ice cubes inside my rubber boots!!

It’s a very frigid –18 (that is including wind-chill). I am sitting in the Timothy’s on Roncesvalles drinking my almost cold tea and trying to illegally connect to someone’s wireless connection with no luck – I am able to connect for about 4 minutes and then the blasted Rogers “hot spot” will take over and try to get me to pay 6 bucks for one hour of Internet use…yes you just read that correctly – I said “6 bucks for one hour”. That’s messed up. It makes me wonder why more coffee shops in this city won’t get a little more benevolent and provide some free wireless for their patrons. It seems to me that it would make sense on many levels. But nooooo…this is no Fogo Island, folks. This is Toronto. Where nobody is apt to meet you on the street and invite you in for tea and Hard Tack. No sireee, Bob. Unless of course you are willing to pay the big bucks. It occurs to me right now that this is a fantastic city for people who have a whole lot of money. Yay, Babylon!! Whoops….I mean…Yay, Toronto!!!!

Ummm…I sense this entry is taking a bit of a “down-turn”, to use a phrase that is being thrown around a lot lately. So I’ll change the subject…. to an amazing movie I rented last night called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It is based on the book by the same name, written by the (then) editor of Elle magazine, Jean Dominique Bauby, who had a stroke that caused a very rare condition called “locked in” syndrome. It left this highly successful, gregarious man completely paralysed, with the exception of the movement of his left eye. He was also left without the ability to speak or make any sound. The film is made almost entirely from his perspective, so the watcher feels what it might be like to be trapped inside ones own body. You can hear his inner dialogue as he struggles to communicate with the people around him. You would think that watching a movie like this might be completely depressing or morose, and it did have an element of sadness and discomfort, for sure….but it was surprisingly much more hopeful than it was anything else. You could describe the movie as an ode to the power of the imagination – which is the thing that enabled this completely paralysed man to write the book (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), with help, by blinking his left eye!!! It is truly inspiring in a very realistic, un-cheesy way. After seeing the movie I will be checking the good old Toronto Public Library (or TPL as I like to affectionately call it) for the book ASAP! You, whomever you may be, should see this movie.

Crappy. I just spilt my cold tea all over my leg here in the coffee shop. Classic. Now I have a very cold knee. And now I have cold tea pooled in the bottom of my precious rubber boots!! The nice man mopped it up for me, though. And a kind lady handed me a fist-full of napkins. Awww, maybe the people of Toronto aren’t so bad after all…(wink, wink).

Peace OUT,

-Julia