Embracing change in familiar places

I’m walking east on College. Between Bathurst and Spadina. Flooded with memories of being 21, 22, 23 in this city. More specifically; this part of the city. Thinking about how deeply Kensington Market was imprinted on my soul. A chokehold it’s had on me since I was a little girl. Partly because of what it represents: community, accessibility, a beautiful defiance against this late stage capitalist hellscape. Small businesses. Diversity. History. Love.

But mostly because it represented my childhood and every store and street corner reminded me of my dad. I think that’s why it’s the only place I wanted to exist when I got back from sailing the Caribbean with him, all those years ago. I was desperately reaching for something that was already gone. For someone who wasn’t coming back. Stevie Ray Vaughan in my ears, a curiousity towards everyone and everything.

I remember sitting at the Last Temptation, as I was on so many evenings back then. My dad was crossing the Pacific Ocean and it had been nearly 40 days since I’d heard anything. A message lit up my phone from a remote satellite operator: “I’m alive,” it read. “Crossing the equator at sunrise. Your dad loves you.”

He came back to visit last week. The city looks different on him. He told me he doesn’t fit with this society anymore and he doesn’t want to. He’s changed. It’s my city now.

And as I walk these same streets today, nearly a decade later, I realize I’m mistaken about what I’m missing this time. Who I’m missing. It’s her I’m remembering. This bright eyed, beautiful young girl. Optimism in abundance. Every stranger, a friend she hadn’t met yet.

This time around, I find myself back here for difference reasons. Less an enthusiastic decision. More so the only possible choice. At least for as long as my mum is alive and fighting her battle with this disease that has taken too many, too young. She stopped drinking. She’s actually vegan now. I want to tell her. Warn her. The me from back then. But she had enough on her mind.

I’m still the same girl from 10 years ago. I’m just older, wiser, probably a little more cynical. I think she’d be proud of me though. Because I’ll never let go of my commitment to improving every community I’m a part of. And to loving people beyond measure, withholding judgement. I am her. She is me.