Toronto Love Letter
Okay perhaps a love letter then, long overdue. I am here thinking of how much I missed the eastern city I spent so many years exhausting myself into believing I hated; thinking of how all this time I had been wanting to move somewhere, anywhere else, that I maybe missed all the moments that happened in between. I am thinking of the nuanced romance of Toronto in the summer, belated spring in May, autumn train rides to Montreal watching afternoon bruise into blackened night, the long trial of winter in eastern North America. I am thinking of Uber conversations in rusted French; thinking of dinner at Vin Papillon; thinking of Majestique for fries always and the briniest oysters possible every post-train meal, suitcase shoved carelessly into the corner of the booth.
Sweetbitter: “I think it was Nicky who used to say, ‘Life is what happens when you’re waiting.’”
Well alright then. In that case I am thinking of evening walks in June when the lake breeze would make me shiver, thinking of sleepy mornings running in beat-up Stans through wet snow across campus, thinking of stubbornly refusing logical reason and walking up Yonge from Bloor through Rosedale to Eglinton in the hot July sun. I am thinking of the very college-esque luxury of split-second decisions to gallery-hop Arsenal-Clint Roenisch-Daniel Faria-Mercer Union on a Wednesday; thinking of the childish impatience of waiting in line at Sugo five p.m. after the last exhibition of the day only to give up abruptly ten minutes in to grab something, anything, anywhere else. I am thinking of reading Joan Didion and Susan Sontag and Alain de Botton in cafes and wine bars as a twenty-year-old cliché relishing in my solitude, thinking of dropping by for oysters and dollar-an-ounce wine at Chantecler, thinking of all of the beautiful Friday nights with all of my beautiful people at Pinky’s and Rhum Corner and Uncle Mikey’s and Civil Liberties and Vit Beo, when life seemed stretched vast and infinite beyond everyone’s fingertips. I am thinking of how lucky I was to be so obliviously surrounded everywhere by the gentle ebb and flow of love in all its varying forms; thinking of how much of a special privilege it was to try on different faces of ennui and mimic the soft silhouette of a housecat’s life. I am thinking of all of the blurred confessions that once lingered in each nondescript street corner and long-shuttered bar; thinking of how so many of them maybe linger there still, folded into empty forgotten crevices. Six a.m. in December with the warm eastern light slanting through my window, snippets of the lake winking through half-built condominiums. Everything viscous, everything golden, everything sweet. All of the most memorable things we say to each other in our most immemorable moments. All of the words shelved within the shadow of my body, waiting to one day be rediscovered. How many lifetimes are we permitted to exist within the few premature hours of day where one may finally release the weight of all their words without the requirement of any follow through? Forever, I would think. Maybe the moments that touch us the most are the ones we refuse to name. Maybe the people who touch us the most are the ones we never allow a name. A hairline fracture splits between the two halves of poison and honey balanced on one’s tongue. Saccharin wrapped as sucrose. Salt dissolving into the sweat of our hands. How a singular night can change an entire person. How we are maybe all irreversibly changed at some point by one night, by one person who manages to truly touch us. Life cleaves then into the before and after. In that moment you think to yourself, this is the first time I have learned to begin. The world explodes with colour. I read somewhere that the first year colour TVs were introduced to consumers was 1954, but a more accurate date is really something like 1964. Maybe we are all subconsciously waiting for that one moment in our lives. Maybe every moment is the moment we are waiting for, if only we let it be such an instant. The mind can be so stubborn. How many of the fights we start are the ones we are actually having with ourselves? Wrestling ourselves when we think we are wrestling someone else instead. How much of life is punctuated by that sentence we said in fear of what we actually wanted to do? All of the moments we forget to say the things we really mean. I read Melissa Febos and ask myself how many times we must abandon ourselves in the misguided desperation of searching for our likeness in someone else. Maybe the sum of our identities is the imprint of those who came into our lives the few years prior to the now. Maybe every corner holds the gentle beckoning of an entire world stretched before our hands. Maybe everything is ripe and rich and waiting to be plucked, if only we look hard enough. Maybe that is the crux of this all. Everything caught in an indecipherable code yet to be cracked, everything the sweetness of a what-if whispered on the tongue, everything magnificent, everything magnanimous, everything magniloquent.
I am here thinking — thinking of that first day in March each year when the illusion of spring arrives quietly onto the city’s doorstep; thinking of what it may mean to feel a lifetime of tenderness pass over a candlelit table on a Thursday evening; thinking of all of the places I still do not know and have yet to learn, a mouth stretching to form a foreign word for the first time.