Have you ever felt like a city could somehow give you a hug? That is what it felt like as I hopped off a tiny plane into Toronto, on an uncharacteristically warm, winter day. Sadly, the weather the rest of my time in the city was not as kind, with so many layers being worn in defense against the elements. On that first day though, the Sun was shining, there were people walking their dogs, and a delightful number of joggers. I will say, it felt oddly unceremonious to leave the airport, given that you pretty much walk right out into the city. This was a welcome change after all my nightmare experiences dealing with Newark’s airport (!!). With the little sleep I had, I managed to find the correct streetcar.
I’m quite sure I had never planned to be in Toronto, nor had I made many concrete itinerary goals once my tickets were actually booked. Yet somehow, all the pieces fell into place. Thanks to Atlas Obscura, sights like the Doll House, Half House, and Cube House made my time full of unexpected surprises. I found myself reunited with old faces, squeezed in free trips to two museums (the Aga Khan Museum is free Wednesday 5-8pm and The Art Gallery of Ontario is free for everyone under 25), and scored a last-minute ticket to the winter market in the Distillery District.
There was plenty to be happy about, but by no means was my time in Toronto a happily ever after fairytale; it was quite the opposite honestly. As I wandered through the Art Gallery of Toronto, I received news that my sister had been in an accident with my car. At the time, not knowing any of the details, I was just happy to know she was feeling alright, albeit shaken up. It had been a freak pile up on the highway, and Betsy (my car) seems to have taken the brunt of it all.
Terrifyingly, life can change in an instant. My sister, a newly minted driver, saw something that most experienced drivers do not ever have to bear witness to. And my car, who has been with me through pretty much every major life event of the past 6/7 ish years, will no longer be a part of me. It’s likely very silly to think of inanimate objects in such ways, but I see memories and faces when I think of my little Nissan Altima. That’s because it was never just about the car. It never is just about “x.” There are so many layers to these waves of emotion that rush over us. I’m trying my best to appreciate and validate these feelings, but when you have not quite mastered your sea legs, it can be easy to feel like you’re drowning.
Mild sedation from legal edibles certainly helps to wrap your head around things not being the way you want them to be. I would say it even opened up a door to realizing you do not have to feel like life is simply being done to and around you. What if we actually sunk into our bodies when things felt the shittiest; when it feels like the air is being sucked from your lungs? Sinking into my body, being oddly present, I realized what I in fact needed to do was breathe (yes, groundbreaking). From there, creativity and motivation can find ways of seeping in. You start feeling maybe, just maybe, you can swim again.
I see how another me, in an earlier time, likely would have spiraled, especially with all the other things going on right now. It can almost be an aesthetic choice at times, to take on the appearance of someone clearly going through it, but somehow still standing. Biking along the waters of Lake Ontario in Trillium Park, I did not feel like that previous disheveled wreck version of me. I felt like a determined biker who needed to return their bike to the docking station before their 30 minutes were up!
A thought struck me. Perhaps, somewhere hidden from the rest of us, on the other side of this looking glass of life, there are people that look just like us. These people, somehow, have cracked the code, understanding how to skirt through life without a single hitch. On our current side of reality however, I’m not yet convinced it is possible. Things break, people change, and billions of tiny decisions shape our world each day. As I looked at the sun hitting the water and cascading over the glass of buildings that seemed to stretch a thousand me’s tall, I found pity for those other versions of us. In all my chaos, take it or leave it, I feel like a human; someone truly living. None of it could have been planned, but there I was absorbing it all. Life’s most intriguing, trying moments are rarely planned. We can work diligently in an effort to foresee what life will throw our way, but crossing t’s and dotting i’s can only get one so far.
If you choose to focus beyond today for too long, soon enough you look up and see how far from yourself that you have drifted; how you are by no means living. The beauty of traveling is there is only so much planning you can do. Even if you decide to go down to the minute, something is bound to come up and shift your plans. This is because when you are traveling you’re truly forced to live in the moment, and see the present world around you. You have no other choice than to experience it all. Chaos (hopefully the good kind) ensues and you and the world finally begin this dance, true interaction with one another.
Typing this now, I’m realizing there are so many flipsides to our experiences and it is our minds that either create our own prisons or grant us the key. For that reason, I’m trying fervently to stop seeing things in such binary terms of good and bad. I think it strips us of our humanity, in increments that go undetected. I’m blessed to have my sister safe and to have ever even had a car like Betsy in the first place. Toronto with it’s wind, rain, and cold had every reason to be a thorn in my side. Yet there I was, somehow in the warmest places I could have ever imagined to be in. Perhaps it’s the edibles, but when we try our best to grow and keep living sometimes the world smiles back.