included my poet-friend from Serbia who was a dissident writer, jailed several times, who finally left his homeland for Edmonton. A nice morning coffee with him at Second Cup discussing language, literature, famous writers, and poetry. It does not get much better than that. We will read together at the Upper Crust Café in September, and I will read two poems from his interesting new collection, as translated, edited, and reviewd with my help, Orpheus’ Palimpest.
In the afternoon, I chatted at the local drugstore with the South Korean female pharmacist and the Punjabi female cashier about their lives of late. Tomorrow I have my regular monthly massage with my nice, hard-working North Chinese therapist. In two weeks, I will be seeing (for the first time in 59 years) my grade 5 British-roots woman-teacher in Winnipeg on what may very well be my last trip to my hometown of Winnipeg.
These are all interesting, nice, hard-working people with their respective dreams. I am fortunate to consider them among my new friends of the last five years or so. (What I call Real People.) For me, it shows yet again, how ‘the world has come to Edmonton’, bringing new perspectives, expanding my own consciousness and awareness in larger ways. They fill me up and instill more global awareness across traditional gender and borderlines. I consider myself very lucky to have them in my life, ‘inside me’.