The summer I came back from Rome

The eternal city had rocked my teenage world. And then I moved back to Canada. I lived downtown where all the government offices are, therefore after 5 pm it was a ghost town. I spent a lot of time at Tech wall; the park across the street from Central Tech High School. The park boasted a patch of grass and a square slab of pavement which butted up against a 20 foot high retaining wall. The wall was an infamous graffiti spot and also, we played basketball there.

I used to shoot hoops with my boyfriend at dusk in the middle of the summer and watch the city buses go by. Sometimes other people would be there to talk to, homeless folk or artists setting up to paint. A well-known graffiti artist was often there and I became good enough friends with him that we hung out beyond the wall. His work was widely considered untouchable and it was faux-pas to cover up one of his pieces.

Sometimes in the middle of the day I would bring my guitar there and watch pick up games of soccer run by local Brazilians or something.