I don’t need to open this with some nonsense about how the pandemic has mentally effected us, about how it’s distorted time and nostalgia in our desperate cravings for normalcy again. About how we’re re-watching Recess on Disney+ because last year and 2001 feel like the same distance from normal in this weird alternate reality we’re living in, right?
Great.
I want to visit my hometown.
Really, Really badly.
Is that notion intermingled with how much I miss my family who I haven’t seen in sixteen months? Maybe. Or maybe it’s because I dream of going to Masonville mall way too early for my movie, just to get out of the house. Wandering around, purchasing nothing and staring at whatever is currently in the place of the failed K̵-̵M̵a̵r̵t̵, T̵a̵r̵g̵e̵t̵, Homesense.
You know what London, Ontario is famous for? Aside from being the # 2 London in the world…
- Most Active Serial Killers in the world from 1959–1984
- Famously drunk Higher Education Students.
- Labatt’s Brewing
- Really shit drivers
And yet I would walk a near literal Proclaimers (484 miles) to London, Ontario, if it meant I got to hug my best friend. And then we’d go to Prince Al’s. Because the nostalgia hit I’d get from from ordering a milkshake and getting the extra bit in the metal mixer tin, would be almost strong enough to overwrite the anxiety that nearly paralyzes my actions day to day. Do you know who else offers you the metal tins with extra milkshake?
Every other restaurant that offers milkshakes. Like, everywhere.
And I currently live in NYC! The epicenter of North America! A vast marketplace of restaurants and tastes perfected by chefs sampling the world itself. Even in lock-down, pandemic times, these cautionary times, I still have almost all of the Big Apple at my feet to shop and explore. But no. I want to go to Covent Garden Market and have an excessively long debate with myself about where to eat. Will I be healthy and go to that salad place? Or perhaps Thai or Japanese or soup? I will spend longer on this meal debate than any of the debates I have over posting a picture of myself outside without a mask for a half a second, wondering if I’m a terrible person sending the wrong message to my friends who might think I’m an anti-masker which why the fuck is that even a thing. Oh, and I’ll end up getting 2.50 pizza from the bakery in the corner as always.
My daily focus is absolutely shot to hell and instead of reading this calming book written by someone I should read more of- I’ve spent five minutes fixating unhealthily on the fact that I don’t remember what malls look like anymore. Malls are detested in NY state apparently. You either live in a place where everything has it’s own stand alone building or you live in NYC and there’s no room for malls. Yet I would pull a NUTZ cart to the ground if it meant I was able to get lost in White Oaks again, needing to reorient myself by finding the Wal-mart. Because the food courts is in two parts? Ugh. And you know what. I want to go to Galleria mall just to be offended I now have to walk outside to get to the library or the movie theatre from the library or the movie theatre. Yeah, you heard me. GALLERIA. You can’t even find a Citibank in Canada. Nonsense naming convention.
Sudden changes in routine and uncertain times breed a desire for familiarity. Wandering around my still unfamiliar neighborhood in Hamilton Heights won’t bring me comfort. You know what will? A walk around Victoria Park staring at the empty band shell. And that tank? You know, that tank that someone has had sex underneath. You know that guy. You know you know that guy. Because I know that guy and we should both be ashamed that we know that guy. But, that’s what you do in Victoria Park when it’s not ‘Sunfest.’ You get a coffee from the Starbucks that someone put a car through and walk around listening to a murder podcast until you pass that tank and that terrible fact comes roaring back into your head. And then you wonder if anyone has been murdered on said tank. If so, you could write into the murder podcast!
Being apart from family is hard. Being apart from family where the time you’re able to safely visit them keeps getting pushed back is frustrating. Being apart from my father who buys things off Kijiji and then asks me the night before if I’d come with him to pick it up is impossible. To wake up at some ungodly hour, because he promised you breakfast in exchange for your help and breakfast is at 7:30 am. And then you find yourself in a part of town that you don’t even recognize. He says it’s because we’re on the East end but I think he’s lying about which way East is. I don’t even recognize the Tim Horton’s out here.
I would like to drive out to Byron to visit the one friend who lives in Byron, and only play board games because you can’t drink in Byron because you have to drive back from Byron.
I want to go out to Wonderland and Southdale to do some shopping and decide to spend 40 minutes just walking to each store because everything is miles apart. And then walk right past Buffalo Wild Wings to go to Palasad because we have loyalty in this house.
I want to get annoyed that I have to walk up Dundas and almost to Wellington to go to Coffee Culture when there was a perfectly good one on Richmond and Dufferin.
I want to have to explain to my Toronto friends that the Dundas Street in London is the same Dundas Street they have in Toronto, and that it’s just really long. But it starts in London and that feels important to us.
I want to hear the bells of St. Peter’s ring out while I sit in the Williams, eating a cheesecake because Cafe Demetri’s closed years ago. And I’m still mad about it.
And yet.
I’ve spent this whole pandemic - this whole lockdown - in Upper Manhattan. Flattening the curve in Hamilton Heights. And more than once, my wife and I were very tempted to rent a car and head North. Thinking it’d safer for us up there, but who knows. Instead we stuck it out here while relatives in Canada, aunts and uncles who I would usually only see at holidays, reached out to us. Calling weekly to check on me because NYC was arguably ‘ground zero’ in the US. We saw mass graves dug on Staten Island, we had the big hospital ship parked at the dock for months. But now, the numbers out of Ontario are nearly equivalent to NYS, without the vaccine stats to match.
Today they announced Ontario’s third lock-down. Now I’m the one worried about my friends, my family. Now I’m watching their idiot political leader fuck up any sort of protective measures, any sort of recovery. And there’s no feeling of “shoe on the other foot”. Just grief. And worry. And a strange desperate feeling to check the Stobie’s board and invite the friend whose dumb name is on that fucking chalkboard so I have an excuse to have a greasy slice that falls off the plate because they don’t believe in crust.
I feel exhausted all the time. And in rare moments I have energy and the emotional capacity to dwell and miss things, these are the things I think of. The terrible transit system. Seeing two Tim Horton’s at once. The smell of my parents’ favorite diner. Obscenely loud violin music at D+R, punctured by bongo drumming across the corner. The weird fountain at the head of the Thames river. Metal trees.
I can’t reiterate the same things that we’ve been saying for over a year. If you aren’t wearing a mask already, this isn’t to convince you. I’ve given up on you people. But to the rest of us. I’m sorry if this echoes with you. I’m sorry if this gives you the same knot I have in my chest. I’m not a praying person, but I’m a hopeful one. And I hope to see you beautiful people in person. In London. One day. Probably at the Costco. The new one. Not the old one. The one with the gas station.
