Posts tagged shawarma

The first shawarma i had was at the Cedars in Calgary. The old Cedars where the homemade hummous supported a pool of olive oil sprinkled with paprika and dotted with kalamatas. i ordered the shawarma sandwich, a shawarma wrapped in pita with tahini and lettuce and peppers, and it came with that mound of hummous and giant, garlic packed dill slices. i drank it with a Pepsi and talked about music and writing with a guy named Grant. i was nineteen. i miss the worn tiles of the Cedars, and the vaguely Arabic music in the background, and the flavours of the Med. i miss shawarma on cool fall days and walks nestled in the canyons of my urban youth. i miss towers and theatres and comic book shops and talks with homeless geniuses on street corners, waiting for walk signals telling me to cross. i long for that moment on the C-Train platform, right at the edge of that yellow line, thinking of the simple step that would take me into the train’s path and send my crushed body spinning and bloody into oblivion, and the decision to stay where I was and feel the wind of the train rather than the force. i want those days back, but it will never be, so i will just go running on the sedate path down the street, and keep the shawarma for my daydreams.