Jordan

U of T

When we were ten, Jordan, her parents and I went for a walk to U of T to play soccer around the old ivy buildings. It was a sunny, gorgeous day out and we were hot and sweaty from running around with her dad and playing soccer with so much earnestness and energy that we just wanted to get home to have a popsicle and sit afterwards.

We walked by U of T's soccer field and noticed that those giant industry sized sprinklers were on and wondered if we could just put our hands in to cool off a bit before the five minute walk to her place. Her parents said they'd wait while we dipped our hands in and I remember approaching with caution as we got closer because they were huge and the water came out super fast. The water burned my hands when it hit and I pulled back suddenly. "What?" I probably thought. I put it in again because that's what idiot ten year-olds do when faced with something scary and potentially painful. It hurt less this time. We put our arms in, and then our legs and slowly drenched ourselves in water from this giant field wide sprinkler system. We immediately ran around, soaking ourselves and our clothes in the cold water, squealing. We turned our backs to the sprinklers as they doused our butts. We had only planned to go for a quick minute but ended up running through the sprinkler for another half hour. Her parents just sat and watched us goof off and laughed when we walked home with our shoes squelching with every step.  

France

When we were ten, I went to France with Jordan and her parents for a month. We stayed in Paris for our last week but travelled around the southern towns for three weeks before that. Our days were interspersed with visiting old churches and castles and off days where we stayed at our rented gites and did our homework. It was a great time. One night, we went out for dinner in a small town at an even smaller restaurant. We were surrounded by old couples eating seafood. Jordan’s stomach had started to upset her and she was crying. I didn’t know what to do or how to help her feel better. It made me nervous.

Her dad handled her stomachache by doing his impression of “Lefty and Righty” which were his left and right hands, duh. It made me laugh really hard. Jordan’s dad brought out Lefty and Righty in between our mains and desserts and I just stared at Jordan, surprised that she could maintain a straight face when exposed to true hilarity. I shook from laughter. I looked around at all the couples who could not believe that a man was putting on a puppet show with no puppets for his daughter and her friend in the middle of a restaurant. This only made me laugh harder. I was hysterical by the end of it and cried. I couldn’t help myself.

New Year’s Day

One New Year's eve when we were eleven or so, I went to Jordan’s house to celebrate with her and her parents. They were throwing a party for their friends and we were the token preteens, walking around in our fancy dresses. We chatted with all of their friends and joked around with her parents. After making it to the countdown and drinking flights of orange juice, we decided we were bored of being inside and her dad suggested we take a walk to a park by their house. One of his friends came along too and Jordan and I ran out of her place and down the street. We went on the slides and swings until we got tired, all while her dad made sure we weren’t vandalizing anything or disturbing anyone’s peace. The air was so cold but I remember not feeling it in my body at all because of how much we were running around. I didn’t know you could play at parks in the middle of the night, during the coldest months of Canadian winter. We blew vapour into the air and then ran back home where we continued partying and then crashed hard when we eventually went to bed.