Trop beau pour rester à l’intérieur. Pas comme si j’avais besoin d’une raison de plus pour flâner. Mais les beaux jours comme ça se font plus rares, et celui-ci est emprunté à El Niño. Une brise fraîche du nord-est m’accueille à la sortie de Pourquoi Pas Bar à Espresso, latte au lait d’avoine à la main, sac de café éthiopien, doux et fruité, sous le bras, pour la bouilloire des prochaines semaines. Je voyage beaucoup d’ici là : conférences et présentations dans les provinces voisines, de longs jours d’avion et de train à travers un immense territoire, alors que je voudrais seulement m’arrêter un instant. Respirer.

Je longe les commerces et restaurants vides de la rue Sainte-Catherine, rouverte récemment à la circulation. Les arcs-en-ciel et les triangles roses qui couvraient la chaussée piétonnisée ont été rugueusement grattés de l’asphalte, étape essentielle au retour du règne de la voiture. Ça se ressent dans l’odeur du carburant comme sur les trottoirs bien trop étroits.

Virage à droite sur Alexandre-DeSève : sourire coquin avec un mec qui a gardé le contact visuel un instant de trop, dring-dring d’un BIXI qui se déverrouille. Un vent de l’est, et je suis baptisé dans une tombée de feuilles jaune-vert.

J’ai reçu ce matin par courriel les dates de ma soutenance. D’ici quelques semaines, je serai Dr. Mousseau. Je suis enfin au point d’arrivée, et tout se termine en même temps : la thèse, le bail, le club de lecture. Les feuilles tournent encore devant les points d’ancrage des BIXI.

J’aurais souhaité plus de temps pour dire au revoir à cette ville à laquelle je tiens autant et qui m’a autant façonné. Elle gratte déjà ses propres arcs-en-ciel de l’asphalte, et je dois continuer à marcher.

Je m’installe sur un banc devant le terrain de pétanque couvert de feuilles et je m’allume un joint. Le soleil sur le visage, ma liste de lecture saisonnière dans les écouteurs. Il y a tant à faire.

In my desire to break routines recently, I’ve erred into restlessness. When I woke up, I wanted to get out and find a place to settle. I zoomed across buses and métro trains without intention and waited for the inspiration to find me. It didn’t. No place was good enough, or cozy enough, or a close enough walk through the rain, my small, shaking black umbrella covering my freshly braided hair. I wandered Sainte-Catherine, then Plaza Saint-Hubert between Jean-Talon and Beaubien, before hopping on a train back south to my favourite dumpling spot on de la Gauchetière for a solo lunch.

Sammi et Soupe is always busy, and today was no exception, though I showed up before it hit its peak. I got the same table I often do, pressed into a corner near the front. As always, I draped my coat over the chair and slid my backpack onto the wooden seat with a thud that was just a touch too loud, then settled in on the bench opposite. A cursory glance at the menu, but I know why I’m here. The juicy lamb and coriander xiao long bao—number 17—are in the acknowledgements of my dissertation, or might as well be. I always bring friends here who are new to the city or visiting, a little taste of my everyday life that represents this city well. It’s a bit out of the way, and small, and not everyone knows about it. Sometimes you have to wait outside on the pedestrianized stretch of de la Gauchetière until a table is ready. But goddamn, is it worth it.

I think I may be circling the way I have today because I’ve made some decisions about my place in the city recently. I had two applications due by yesterday, and I submitted both. Neither is here. A few months ago, I realized my body was trying to memorize this space before an inevitable departure, one it had been preparing for before there was even a direction. As of the past week, those directions are taking shape. And they’re pointing out. So I wander. I blend in like sheer curtains billowing in the wind, seeing where they might lead, if anywhere at all.

The windowed wall of this coffee shop is what brought me in. I was riding the bus aimlessly up Saint-Laurent from Chinatown when I saw it, rang to get off at Saint-Viateur, and trekked east under the rain. I settled in and got to writing.

But before long, the windows begin to fog up and it gets warmer. It gets harder to see through them, the neighbourhood now only barely visible through the O of HAPPY GOAT on the glass, like one of those tunnel shots from a movie. The illusion is quickly broken as a tour group walks past, followed in short order by a group of four Hasidic kids on scooters. I wipe a patch clear with my sleeve. The neighbourhood’s still there, ordinary and wet. I peer through the mist a while longer, sipping my latte with nowhere to be.

Another early wake. Face washed, teeth brushed, boots laced. A left down Sainte-Catherine. An oat latte at Olimpico on Robert-Bourassa before wandering through the Roddick Gates onto McGill’s empty campus. It wasn’t until I got to the Y intersection that I clocked the circuit: the same morning pull, the same need to leave the house before settling in.

An intentional, directionless turn to the left, followed by a right up McTavish, the final section of the Promenade Fleuve-Montagne. The city gifted itself this pedestrian link for its 375th anniversary, leading from the river’s edge at de la Commune and ending at what the website calls the “mountain threshold” at the corner of Peel and des Pins: a manicured walkway meant to situate this island in its geography, winding from its lowest point to its highest. Had it not been for those matching turquoise and yellow-green path markers the city put up to help you find your way, I might not have noticed it at all.

The grade steepens as I climb Peel, and my calves register it before my mind does. The latte, the boots, the Y intersection… The same loop my body has been running since my eyes fluttered open at their now habitual six o’clock. Then the noticing, and then nothing to do with that noticing but keep climbing. My hoodie has been pulling moisture from the air and my body both since I started.

Getting off Instagram has changed my body, and almost immediately: no more doomscrolling, no more compulsive checking of messages, no more tweaks to the app meant to push me toward Meta’s AI. Still, my thumb drifts to the corner of the screen where the icon used to be a bit more often than I expected.

Good timing, as it turned out. Not long after I temporarily deactivated my account, Meta’s new AI “assistant,” Muse, was in the news. A columnist said it synced his private iMessages after he declined access, and a YouTuber said it handed his home address to a stranger. Both stories were fed to me by another algorithm, my thumb still moving on its own. I don’t know that I’d call it the “last straw” exactly, but I still logged back in to turn my deactivation into a permanent deletion request. My data should be deleted by the end of the month, at least in theory.

I pull my phone out at the foot of the stairs, mostly out of habit. My thumb reaches for the corner again before realizing there’s nothing to reach for. I slide it back into my pocket. The easier path to the summit, the one that meanders up a constant slope past Lac aux Castors and Maison Smith, is still closed for another few days. Levelling and resurfacing, it would seem, but standing in front of that bright orange detour sign, it feels like a condemnation. What my body had been craving was a relaxing morning walk up the Olmsted trail, a slope that lets you forget you're climbing. What it got instead was another choice asked of the listless: resign myself and head toward the park’s southeastern edge at Parc and Prince-Arthur, or take the 250-odd stairs that make you count. I double back a few feet to the mouth of them. We’re breaking routines, supposedly.

I lose count at about 45, then start again. Counting is something to do with the noticing. I can see the skyline through the trees if I squint, and I stop for a minute to catch my breath. The sky is pewter and shallow, the air thick without being wet. I keep my eyes on my boots and my focus on the next landing. Then on nothing in particular; just calves and breath.

The stairs give way to a gravel path, which itself gives way to Belvédère Kondiaronk and the city in all its splendour. Sumac burns red below the balustrade, a plant that moves into any ground that has been broken open. The city sits on top of it, set down gingerly on something that keeps coming back anyway.

Every street is where it’s supposed to be, and I can name most of them from up here. I know them like I know the structures that arranged them: their histories, mechanisms, footnotes. Knowing the city from above hasn’t opened a door; they’re the same streets on the way down.

I stick around for longer than I expected to. There’s something liberating about nobody knowing I’m here: a few weeks ago, I would have posted this view before the coffee cooled. Someone would have seen it, and that seeing would have told me something about where I stood. This one’s just for me, at least until I write it down.

The first drops land on the stone of the courtyard. The skies told me what was coming, but not when. I pull my hood up and wander toward the chalet. The marble floors throw every footstep back at me. A song I almost recognize—something classical, with strings—echoes off the windows and the wooden roof joists. I take my spot at a table by the window, pull out my notebook and pen, and jot down the place, date, and conditions. Rain ticks against the glass; another orchestral piece swells through the speakers. I order a tea and settle in.

I wake up with the sun, despite it being obscured by my thick, green velvet curtains. I rise with it anyway, slow and unhurried, flattening the sheets and making the bed before drawing the curtains back on a city dotted with election signs. I light some Nag Champa at my altar. A deep inhale; a moment of calm before the calamity.

I lace up my black combat boots, tightening as I go, and slide my passport through the elastic band of my Traveler’s notebook. Today is election day, and though my polling station doesn’t open for a few hours, I’ll keep it with me, just in case. The door closes behind me with a thud and I’m on my way.

Downtown is eerily empty for this time of morning, and it makes sense: all of the colleges and universities are closed today to give their students a dedicated day off to vote. Their absence bounces off the walls of the buildings on Sainte-Catherine, my footsteps falling a touch louder than I’m used to. I make my way over to Olimpico for an oat latte and a chocolatine, which I eat on the bench outside more out of duty than hunger, before sauntering toward the gates of McGill’s empty campus.

A breeze rushes through the trees and scatters small yellow leaves across the cobbled path, where they turn in the air a moment before landing. The seasons, too, are changing. I fold that knowledge up, tuck it into the plastic zipper pocket at the front of my notebook, and take an instinctual right at the Y intersection, toward Milton-Parc. Low light catches the red brick and limestone, a Bixi clicks free of its dock, and the birds are unusually quiet for an autumn morning.

Once on Parc, I hop on the 80 up to Parc Jeanne-Mance. Michèle Deslauriers’ voice announces my stop through the bus’ tinny speakers: « Prochain arrêt : Monument Sir-George-Étienne-Cartier. » I wander down the stairs and through the empty park. It's undergone significant redevelopment, largely for the better: more washrooms, water fountains, splash pads, a new football field. I settle onto a picnic table facing a fence and the field. Its transition is almost done. Others are just beginning.

I spark a joint. I’ve been struggling to keep food down these days, especially in the mornings, and this is one of the only things I’ve found that helps. This morning is no exception: the chocolatine is sitting weird in my stomach. I stare at the empty field, smoke curling between my index and middle fingers. I pull out my phone and check the location of my polling station on the Élections Québec website before closing the tab. Not that my vote changes much: my riding has been a PLQ stronghold since it was created, and it doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon.

Eventually, I put the joint out and make my way through the park. East for a couple of blocks down Rachel, then a left down Saint-Laurent toward the restaurant that bears its name. I walk in with a smile and grab a seat at one of the tables by the window. This is always where I sit when I come here—a bit of a tradition, if you could call it that. Greasy-spoon comfort food served with black coffee in a white ceramic mug, on paper placemats and particle board tables. I’m right here. I’m already elsewhere.

Every summer when I was younger, we would take a road trip from Toronto “back home,” to the sleepy town in the Outaouais where my mom was raised, and where a good chunk of her large, Catholic, French-Canadian family still lives. Hell, about half the town is related in some way or another. I remember my excitement as we’d pile into her green Chevy Malibu at three in the morning and snake up the province’s asphalt arteries toward its edge: Highway 401 until the junction with the 37 in Belleville, through Thrasher’s Corner, Roslin and Tweed, then east on Highway 7 to Kaladar and its general store, where we’d usually stop for a coffee or a snack. Then Highway 41: up through Cloyne, along the glistening shores of Upper Mazinaw Lake, through Denbigh, Eganville and Pembroke, to Cotnam Island and the Ontario-Québec border.

The border was always the most exciting part of the journey. The sign made a spectacle of itself: huge, blue and white, an illuminated flagpole welcoming you to the province, first in French, then in other, smaller languages. On the Ontario side, the equivalent was a simple sign with an invitation to discovery and little more. We tuned the radio to 101.9 CHIP FM and made our way up Highway 148. The crawl from there to town felt almost interminable, though my childhood excitement is likely distorting my memory of it. Some years, if I was lucky, we skipped the first intersection with rue Thomas-Lefebvre and carried on about a kilometre, to the street’s other end.

That was where my cousin Jen’s restaurant and dépanneur sat, right at the edge of town. It was one of the only businesses around, inviting drivers in for breakfast, a pack of smokes, fishing tackle, or some scratch tickets sold with a smile. You entered through the main door and took an immediate left through some swinging doors into the seating area, which was what we always did. It was a simple spot, but, in my eyes, it was the best restaurant in the world.

Jen’s fluffy buttermilk pancakes remain one of the highlights of my childhood. They were always served with a small pitcher of pure maple syrup, a huge smile, and a ruffle of my hair that I can still feel if I close my eyes and concentrate hard enough. Once our food was ready, Jen would come over with an ashtray and a pack of Macdonald Originals, and she and my mom would sit and catch up for hours. My mom’s French eased back into place as the conversation went on, less switching between French and English, comfort coating her tongue alongside the cigarette smoke.

I used to have fun folding those paper placemats into paper airplanes and throwing them around the empty dining room while my mom and Jen were shooting the shit. You know the ones: Bienvenue printed over Welcome in burgundy, in that typical serif font, on cream-coloured paper with lacy printed edges. Later, they changed them for another style: basically a page full of advertisements for local businesses and restaurants, and politicians’ faces staring back at you while you eat. I used to scribble over their faces. Plus ça change… Jen’s restaurant closed for good a few years later.

Le Vieux St-Laurent used to have those same burgundy and cream placemats. Maybe that’s why I’m here, on this particular morning. Seeking comfort, I find another paper placemat instead: the same layout in light blue on stark white. The sun bounces off it into my eyes, which still have sleep in the corners, all to tell me how many grams of protein a 250 ml glass of milk would add to my meal (nine, in case you were wondering), with a printed reminder in the bottom left-hand corner to order a glass. I open the menu with a sigh, though I already know what I’m getting. Buttermilk pancakes, extra syrup.

My Apple Watch is dead when I wake up, already prepared to wander. I slipped it onto its magnetic charger without thinking—muscle memory—and grabbed my other watch instead: a circular Fossil watch with a black face and band. Its battery has been dead for a while now, too, the hands stuck at 05:25 on the morning of an 18th that I can’t quite remember. Still, I slip it over my left wrist, mostly to cover the watch tan that has been fermenting all summer. For a second, I’m somewhere else entirely: frolicking with friends through the Champ des possibles, trekking across Parc René-Lévesque toward the water, feeling my heart rate increase as I pass the cruising spot near the tracks. I catch myself and come back.

I slide on my bomber jacket and glance at the watch face. Dead battery, right, of course. I remember now all those days I meant to change it, but didn’t. It seemed so trivial that I stopped seeing it as a choice. I roll my sleeve down to cover it, as if anyone was paying attention, and meander out the door.

Place des Arts is quiet. Birds chirp in the crisp Saturday morning air, and tourists cluster at the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Jeanne-Mance. A young father is playing with his daughter in front of the Columbus Café, running through the shade and sun thrown by Maestria, the two condo buildings connected by a pedestrian bridge on their twenty-sixth floor. Finally looking up, the child’s mother pulls her phone out of the top of the empty stroller and snaps a photo.

I often think about how slowly this city wakes up on a Saturday. Just a touch too late, wiping the crust from its eyes and shaking out its hair as it coaxes itself back to life. Gently. There’s an expression for this type of morning in French that doesn’t survive translation: grasse matinée. A morning that’s slow; indulgent. Forgiven in advance. My pace slows for a split second before the walk pulls me back into myself.

A small cluster of tourists jaywalks from the opposite corner of Sainte-Catherine and Saint-Urbain. The streets are all empty at this time, of course. My eyes flick, reflexively, to the SPVM headquarters. I keep waiting for the traffic light anyway.

Up Clark, some unhoused folks are sleeping on wet benches, covered in blankets. The city’s security apparatus is also slow to rise on a Saturday morning, just like everything else. But I know how this goes: by the time the tourist veneer needs the streets to look a certain way, these folks will be cleared up, scuttling through the city with their belongings, their histories, their whole lives, stuffed into backpacks while the whole city looks away.

I get to Pikolo and decide to take my coffee for here. I’m sitting by the big windows facing the bike path down rue Ontario. I chat with the barista about paper newsletters stacked on the counter, the ones made by a community member who got tired of the algorithm deciding what she saw and when. She chose to build instead. The concept is simple, yet profound: folks submit whatever they feel like sharing, and a newsletter full of poetry, reflections, and horoscopes is printed on coloured paper, folded with care, and distributed to others who need the digital detox. No more news feed, no algorithmic ranking, no one editing to maximize engagement. I take out my notebook and a book I just picked up from the BAnQ that’s due back in a couple of weeks. Both analog. Both, for now, still working.

Je barre la porte derrière moi vers neuf heures et le corridor beigeasse s'étire devant moi. Je fixe le tapis bleu marin, mon café encore chaud dans la main droite. Un mélange éthiopien d'un torréfacteur local, pas le plus frais, mais c'est de ma faute, ça. Je l'ai acheté il y a plusieurs semaines, et voilà, il m'en reste un tiers de sac ce lundi matin gris. Je sais pas pourquoi j'avais choisi ce jour-là pour aller flâner avec un café... Où est-ce que je vais m'installer pour lire, pour travailler?

Pourtant, les cafés, c'est mon terrain. J'ai fait la majorité de mon bac assis à la grande table de l'ancien Starbucks sur Sainte-Catherine et de la Visitation, où ma carte en or me valait des remplissages gratuits et où j’ai appris à boire mon café noir. À Angus, c’étaient les cafés du secteur, le Sharpe surligné devant les grandes fenêtres qui donnent sur le parc Jean-Duceppe. Je draguais les serveurs des fois, juste pour le geste. Ça rapportait, ici et là: un sourire coquin, un numéro griffonné sur un bout de papier, glissé près des toilettes.

Pas ce matin, en tout cas. Avec un petit salut au portier, je pousse la porte, un soupir m'échappe, et je suis frappé par le vent. J'oublie toujours qu'à Montréal, il y a beaucoup d'endroits qui sont fermés les lundis. Bon. Moi et mon café filons vers les portes grises de la Place-des-Arts, en pleine revitalisation, des barrières et des panneaux colorés essayant, naïvement, de cacher l'ampleur du désordre. L'entrée est à moitié éventrée, tout comme le MAC voisin, tout comme l'Édifice des théâtres. La ville se réécrit sans cesse, un brouillon que je relis de temps à autre pour me souvenir de ses origines et de la façon dont j'ai grandi avec elle.

Le vent et mon café brouillent mon parcours traditionnel vers la rive. Il me faut une autre direction. Je prends le métro, direction Angrignon, jusqu'à McGill avant de faire le transfert vers le REM. La voix de Caroline Dhavernas résonne dans le plastique des murs et des sièges du train : « Direction A1: Brossard », et je m'installe avec mon livre du moment, un recueil de poésie de Mosab Abu Toha. Une vue imprenable de la ville déferle devant les fenêtres, mais je suis ailleurs, tremblant à ses côtés dans un camp de réfugiés à Jabalia, en plein génocide. Le son du train et le son des drones résonnent tous les deux dans ma tête, et je ne sais plus lequel appartient à qui. Je débarque à la station Île-des-Sœurs : « Les portes s'ouvriront sur le côté… droit. » Merci, Caro.

Je flâne sur les trottoirs sous le pont Samuel-de-Champlain, vers le Parc de l'Esplanade de la Pointe-Nord. La bruine a commencé sans que je m'en rende compte. Je remonte mon capuchon. Le tissu humide se colle à ma nuque, et ça revient, presque un réflexe : Trayvon Martin, le hoodie comme preuve, comme sentence. Je me concentre sur ma respiration. Je garde mon capuchon. Je continue à marcher.

Une pancarte à l'entrée du parc m'explique que « cet endroit est une esplanade (une plaine) située sur la pointe nord de l'Île des Sœurs. » En tout cas, ce que le nom perd en créativité, il le gagne en clarté, hein? Je ris un peu et je me dirige, comme toujours, vers l'eau. J'y passe un bon moment, accoté sur une roche au bord du fleuve, profitant enfin de mon café et d'un moment de solitude parmi le chaos.

Mes épaules restent hautes, mon pas veut toujours arriver quelque part. Freiner mon élan demande un effort considérable. De ne pas avoir besoin de fuir, au fond. Alors je flâne: je gribouille mon numéro sur des bouts de factures pour qu'on me retienne, et je m'accroche aux accrocs d'un tissu urbain qui ne sait toujours pas m'intégrer. Pas plus que je ne sais démêler, encore, le bruit d'un train de celui d'un drone, quelque part, sous le vent.

I woke up early again today. I facilitated a post-screening panel for Club Sexu and the National Film Board of Canada last night, and it felt good. I felt in my element, and crashed shortly after getting home. I crawled out of bed, washed my face, brushed my teeth, then slid my bomber jacket over the restlessness that has pressed on my shoulders for months. Wandering sleepily down Sainte-Catherine in the morning light, I ended up, as I often do when I’m downtown this early, at Café Olimpico.

The place was full, as always, and there was just one barista at that hour. Today, a group of cyclists in matching spandex and white helmets crowded around the edge of the bar, right by the door. I could only assume they were European, since they took their coffees standing at the bar despite the room having absolutely no space for it. In town for the UCI Road World Championship, I surmised. The already cramped space was more perilous with their presence, my backpack and my eyes dodging unintentional elbows and sideways glances. I’m used to it in this city, in this body.

I ordered an oat latte and a chocolatine to go, tipped with a smile, and snaked my way out the door. By this time, those same cyclists were crowding the sidewalk. I brushed my way past, not even sure where I was going until I saw the 35 idling at the corner of Union and Maisonneuve. The Transit app said it was leaving at 07:35, so I meandered on board and grabbed a seat.

The sun had been out the whole time, though you could hardly tell. The towers block its light from the street at this time of day, leaving only the wind. Sharpening the breeze into something that cuts. I glanced out the right-hand window and saw an ad on a neighbouring bus: Encourager le français, ça donne du courage. It’s meant to encourage francophones to be patient with business owners who are still learning the language. A plea for empathy from a campaign that now feels as if it’s from another time.

These days, politicians have been talking differently about language. The structures that facilitated inclusion have been defunded by austerity’s thousand cuts, sharp like the autumn breeze, and those who were already struggling to get by are left in the dark. Painted to be the problem for society’s ills. Scapegoated. Marginalized. I felt the tension rise in my body, so I took a photo and turned my attention to the other window as the bus wandered down Côte-du-Beaver-Hall, Saint-Jacques, and McGill. The bikers from the café, in an even larger, even more spandex-clad group made their way past us on the protected path by our side. They eventually make their way past the bus and we don’t see them again. Returned to the current of a city sleepily coming to life.

I’ve been exploring this same route for days now, largely without meaning to, and I don’t think that’s coincidental. When I first moved here, I used to call this area “Little Toronto.” There was something about the tightly packed condo towers, the chain storefronts, the suspicious absence of parks. The corner of Peel and Wellington, where I got off the bus with a quick merci to the bus driver, makes the case on its own. The traffic lights here have a bright yellow border, which is common in Toronto, but much less so here. There’s a protected left turn that gets priority over pedestrians. The cycle stays red on all sides for just a beat too long, daring anyone to run it. These structures have already decided who they’re for and who gets the luxury of moving through them unencumbered. That knowledge too settles onto my shoulders and folds into my route toward the water.

The buildings have been hiding the sun’s warmth since Sainte-Catherine. That is, until I get to the rail underpass just past the corner of Peel and Smith. It breaks free for a glorious moment, bathing my skin and the Farine Five Roses sign in its warm, morning glow. Wind threads my coat, brushing my neck, and for a heartbeat, the world holds. I take it in with a profound inhale before moving toward that bench facing southeast on the Flour Dock that’s been calling my name.

It started, as it usually does, with the flick of my thumb. A muscly anticapitalist influencer in a tight tank top offers a sharp analysis of the creeping tides of fascism. Denied a fish, a sea lion snorts and barks in perceived indignation. A clip of a butch queen voguing fem from the last ball. The limbless body of a wailing child, carried on a stretcher to a hospital that no longer exists. An exclusive review of the new folding iPhone. Official US government accounts posting fascist propaganda. A dog in a Christmas sweater howling along to Mariah Carey. Another village is wiped from the map, turned into yet another non-native forest; this one bears my country’s name. I scroll to the comments, click “see more,” and read people begging for a crumb of recognition from under the jackboot of genocide. One person replies: “Reported.”

One last flick to close the app, followed by a deep, shaky inhale. I glance around the room—clothes strewn across the floor and tables cluttered with dishes and granola bar wrappers—and I am undone. The feed doesn’t sort by weight. Catastrophe and restaurant reviews share the same pane of glass, the same brightness, and demand you navigate the unfathomable gaps between them at the speed of a swipe. And I did, until I couldn’t.

Had it come to mind, I might have counted all the nights where my chest tightened like a fist, all the mornings spent doomscrolling until my breath went high and shallow, all the times the room tilted while my hands shook, low and steady. I’ve been carrying this cursed rectangle of weather in my pocket. Every once in a while I’d pull it out, mostly out of habit, before being consumed. I’d sometimes call it “staying informed,” and I’d sometimes call it “a lifeline to community.” With increasing frequency, I was also calling it “bearing witness.” Nobody tells you that all that looking can become a duty, and there’s only so much looking the body can take before something gives. And then something gave, and the body sat alone. Shaking. Sweating. Sobbing. Sinking.

This current has been holding me for years. My body aches for another water.

Jason Arday’s name has been sitting in my chest for weeks. He was the youngest Black professor in Cambridge University’s history, before being accused of plagiarism by a far-right postdoc at the University of Ghent and mercilessly piled on by the British press. He resigned and was found dead days later. My body read it as being pressured out of the world for his excellence, for having dared to claim a place in the halls that would exclude us. The same halls, incidentally, that were built with the wealth stolen from the resources and forced labour of our ancestors.

I hadn’t gone looking for the story. The polemic surfaced in between the sea lion and the folding iPhone, and it settled in my sternum before I could say his name. I carried him around. I swallowed his story like a stone.

That night, on my couch next to the window, another name crossed my feed. Thélyson Orélien. A Haitian-Québécois novelist, recent winner of the Prix du roman Fnac, was accused by an anonymous account on X of having written his novel with AI. He denies this, but the outrage machine is already turning. I felt that same tightness in my chest from weeks earlier: strangers certain they’d caught a fraud, our very own Arday, mais en français. It’s hard not to see the pattern immediately: Black excellence, then suspicion, then the pitchforks. I’m still not sure my body can hold the weight of it again.

It’s been a few days, and I’ve since deactivated my Instagram account. I found a tool that deleted all of my Blacksky posts. I archived Fragments, my one public-facing writing project. Long scrolls of my own voice, rushing down the drain. It didn’t feel like leaving. Not quite. More like taking my hands out of a current I’d been feeding with my body and my story for years, everything I’d put there travelling without me into rooms I’d never see.

So this is what I built. If you stumbled across this page after wondering where I disappeared to, welcome. Littoral is the other water I’ve been aching for: a place for things to arrive, be noticed, be set down, and be stayed with for as long as I need to. These pages are currently bare because I’m rebuilding them to be about what my body’s meant to carry.

As for Fragments, it’s not gone. It’s simply moved indoors, where I can tinker with it away from the public eye. I’m hoping to shape it into something I can publish, once my body and I are ready for all that entails.