parting thoughts

I’m leaving Toronto in a few hours and should have blogged days ago because now there are too many thoughts and too little time to get them down. My phone doesn’t work up here and so I took lots of photos but can’t post any online and somehow words alone don’t seem sufficient to describe this trip. What the photos show is just how happy I’ve been the past few days…usually my trips to the Great White North are fraught and uncomfortable for me. But this trip was different. I saw lots of friends and relatives but didn’t feel pressed or pulled in a dozen different directions. There was enough time to just BE with people, and I hope the memories that linger are of the times I didn’t bring my camera along—when I walked the Belt Line after dinner with my two cousins, their husbands, and their puppy Frida. Or yesterday when I spent half an hour in a small park filled with families and didn’t feel like an outsider because my other two cousins just made it seem so natural that I would be there to hold the dog’s leash or push the kids on the swing or walk home holding hands. Normally I would feel very outside myself in those moments but we were remembering the parks we played in when we were kids and somehow that anchored me. Everything this weekend felt continuous—like a continuation of old customs and traditions and habits that used to drive me nuts. Like having to put on a sweater as soon as I reach my mother’s house because the windows are wide open, letting in the cool lake air. And having three cups of tea in two hours because my mother always has the kettle on. And popping next door to see our long-time neighbors who were like parents to me when I was a child. Or chatting for three hours with my high school English teacher over a sumptuous lunch on the waterfront. We just pick up where we left off and despite my random, unplanned life, folks kept telling me they were proud of me, inspired by me! I have to head out now to meet my aunt for lunch but will try to pick this up when I get back to Brooklyn tonight. Yesterday I met a friend I haven’t seen in over ten years at the Art Gallery of Ontario. We saw the Basquiat exhibit and then talked about turning 40, leaving the academy, and building the life you want. This painting, Exu, was one of my favorites (because of the fox, of course)…