For years I have…

…passed by this one restaurant on Queen West, La Palette. I peered into the red framed windows and the bottles of liquor and sake balanced precariously on the sill and at the bar. I saw the little chandeliers hanging. And I craved it, felt drawn to it inexplicable ways. 17, 21, and now 24, thinking, thinking for 5 years of this restaurant. Every time I walked by I was on my way somewhere else. Today, I take myself to it. I take myself to it in a beautiful airy dress, with my favourite perfume, a book on transgender theory. I take myself to it from my beautiful lofty home, which I call the tree house, because it perches at the end of a leafy street on the top floor of a hundred year old brownstone, where the sun warms the hardwood through the generous windows, where the horizon of the blue lake is always sparkling, where I sit on the fire escape and feel secure, feel held, feel loved by this beautiful life, which did not come easy, and for which I am glad. The hard things make the good moments that much more recognizable. Every moment lately, I have been giving gratitude, for how things turned out. I am 24, I am 24 and I have a peace. I have a break from the storm. The sun has broken through the clouds. And I am taking myself out, for a night on the town, for a spin. Because this love, this love is here at last.