On new year’s day, I was in three cities: Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa.
I’d spent New Year’s Eve with my brother in Montreal, as is my wont, but this year I decided to do something a little different. I knew a friend of mine from Toronto had a non-alcoholic New Year’s Day recovery party, and he kept inviting me. Well, this time I took him up on it. So with only a few hours’ sleep under my belt I bade farewell to my brother, his girlfriend and their cats, taxied off to YUL just as the sun rose, and thence to YTZ.
It wasn’t a particularly pleasant flight. I was in one of those little propellor planes, and it felt fairly shaky. I didn’t get sick, thank gawd, but it was a bit nerve-wracking all the same.
And then… Toronto. Would you believe it had been over 18 years since I visited Toronto? Yes, for Pride ’96, shortly before moving out west. Wow, how time flies.
And the party was fun! I knew very few people and I’m not naturally outgoing, so I had the urge to glom onto my friend and his partner, or hang around the pinball machine in the Monopoly room*—but I did an okay job of being sociable. It was kind of challenging, but I did my best, and isn’t that all anyone can ask?
(* Really, they had a whole room devoted to Monopoly collectibles: games, coasters, pillows, candles, and an actual, fully functional, pinball machine.)
Socialising aside, Toronto’s an interesting place. I was only able to take in a bit of the downtown area, but it feels very different from Vancouver and Ottawa. It feels like I imagine New York City would feel: loud, bright, kind of oppressive, and architecturally a neat mix of the very old with the very new. Also it’s got streetcars! And Dundas Square, which is like Times Square, except 1/50 as big! Fun times.
Then, the bus back to Ottawa. Leaving at 9PM, arriving at 2AM. This was… different from being on a plane. On a plane you’re high up in the sky, and even if you can see landmarks around you, you’re completely separate from everything. Sure, it’s fun to take pictures of prairie lakes and towns and such… but on a bus you’re part of it. You’re ever so briefly within touching distance of homes, stores, some with familiar names and some without. You get to peek into people’s living rooms, just for a split second, see the Christmas decorations they still haven’t put away, ponder what kind of lives they lead, in these tiny-ass towns… and then you’re off again.
The bus had wifi, and an outlet to plug my phone, so I spent a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook, but there wasn’t a lot going on, so I also followed the bus’s progress on Google Maps. It felt a bit wrong to filter my perception through satellites and fancy software, but it was dark, and I just couldn’t see anything out the window most of the time. So, fuck it, hooray for technology if it told me the names of these towns and rivers, and how far I was from civilisation.
But every once in a while, I did turn off the phone. Not to look, but to ponder. To think about my choices and my life in these last 18.5 years. It’s been a somewhat uneven road, and I have a few regrets, in addition to spending far too long between Toronto visits. And also thinking about the day, which I mostly spent travelling alone. I felt uprooted and dislocated, but in a good way. Not lonely, but cool and adventurous, blazing new paths—or re-exploring very old ones, which was almost as good.
Got to Ottawa a bit late, and I decided to walk back to my parents’ place. No need for a cab, it wasn’t that far. I did come to question that decision a couple times because I was dead tired, and it was really cold. But I enjoyed the empty streets, the quiet. Gave me time to navel-gaze some more. Soon enough, I’d go back to Vancouver, back to real life, put all my new resolutions into practice. But for just one more day, I could relax.
I went to bed around 3AM, almost 21 hours after waking up. Not a bad day at all, if I do say so myself. And a good omen for the coming year.