The Prodigal Daughter

It's amazing how we come full circle sometimes. I grew up in the Bloor West Village area of Toronto, and now I find myself back there. When I got married, I moved up the street to another district, not far away in terms of distance but worlds away in terms of atmosphere. I moved to the Junction, which is very blue-collar and industrial, although it has come a long way and cleaned up quite a bit. I hated it when I first moved there, but after living there for six years, I came to have some affection for it. But I never felt at home there, the way I do in my beloved Bloor West.

Last week, I decided to start a ritual with my daughter and told her that unless the weather was absolutely terrible, we were going for a walk every Sunday. I love walking, and have been severely deprived of it since we moved. My daughter hates walking and always protests about it, which I find very funny because when she's in the house I can never keep her still. She's always running around, jumping off the walls, furniture, whatever. But once I get her out there and start pointing stuff out to her, like, "Emily, look at those snowmen across the street!" or, "Emily, look, there's a kitty over there!", she starts enjoying it. And I always make sure to stop off at the park, which she loves.

Anyway, this past weekend it was like deja vu, because as usual she was complaining that she was tired and "How much further is it?" etc. etc., and it brought me back to my own childhood. I remember walking down to Bloor Street with my mother as a child, dragging every step of the way, complaining and whining that my feet hurt, that it was too far, that I was tired. I remember her going into the butcher shops and green grocers and buying her meat and vegetables and that's what I do now. I was standing in line this weekend at one of the green grocers, waiting to pay for my sweet potatoes and grapes, and I realized I'd forgotten to get mushrooms. I asked Emily if she could go outside and get some for me while I held my place in line. It was so nice ... She went out there, filled me a bag and brought them to the counter just in time to pay for them. The Chinese lady behind the counter said, "Good girl!" and I beamed with pride. She's gotten to be quite the little helper these days.

When I was a kid, the Bloor West Village area was nothing special, pretty non-descript and modest. There were always the butcher shops with huge salamis hanging in the windows, bakeries with trays of cakes and pastries, and the delicious smells accompanying both. But now it has bloomed into an ultra-stylish, ultra-chic yuppie-ish area with tons of cafes, bookshops, boutiques, high-end gourmet grocery shops, and of course the requisite Starbucks, Timothy's and Chapters franchises. The sidewalk bustles and you will always see a good supply of young and middle-aged couples with their cell phones pushing baby carriages, walking their dogs, wearing shades and sipping lattes. Sadly, the two movie theatres that used to landmark the area, the Humber and the Runnymede, are now long gone, but that's the case with all theatres in the city now. Everything has gone multiplex, which I find truly sad (possibly the subject of a future post, coming soon to a blog near you).

I knew, somehow, I'd end up returning to my old neighbourhood. My whole being just seems fully entrenched there. There's the restaurant where my friends and I used to go for fries and coffee every day at lunch; the laneway where I smoked my first joint; the park where I used to hang out with my girlfriend smoking endless cigarettes and discussing various tortured romances.

I know they say that places, houses in particular, retain the spirits or personalities of the people who lived there. They're called "trace memories". Bloor West Village epitomizes that idea for me. No matter how many changes have taken place there in the past twenty or thirty years, no matter how many outrageously priced condos loom, I'll see the outline of a building or look up an endless-looking sidewalk populated with big old houses and big old trees, and feel that nothing has changed at all.