The big changes in my life have produced unexpected results. The mere fact that my commute is down to 25 minutes from over an hour means that I have a full hour of my life back – every day.
The depressing calculation I would have in my head while spending many, many hours commuting up to Woodbine and Steeles every day was that I was spending over two hours a day commuting. Over a year that accounts for about one full month on the TTC. Even though I would fill it with downloaded Podcasts of “Quirks & Quarks” or watching TV shows on my PSP I still felt it as wasted life.
And the bus service along Steeles East leaves a lot to be desired. Beyond all else I will NOT miss 90 minute bus rides over a fresh half-inch of snow.
Even something like going out to dinner with Simone after work means that we meet up at 5:00 or 5:30, instead of whenever the hell I manage to make it downtown. More than once over the last three months we’ve had a leisurely dinner, seen a 7 o’clock movie, then have the rest of the evening to stroll around Queen and Spadina, meet up with friends, see a concert or just head home and relax.
My office is near Active Surplus, which is mostly crap but there are a few gems to be found if you dig deep enough. There’s an EB Games within walking distance, as well as a Chapters. While the Eaton Centre is not “close”, it’s faster for me to walk than to take the subway to get there. When I was growing up in Barrie, my family would make a trip two or three times a year to Yorkdale to shop in a “big city mall”. We didn’t actually call it that. We weren’t that bad, although the sentiment was the same.
Once a year or two, we’d even make a trip into Toronto for the weekend. The trip would include at least some time at the Eaton Centre. I have a vivid memory of going up every escalator in the Eatons store. I started at the very bottom and rode until I reached the nearly barren top floor. It was populated mostly by mattresses and people wondering what this ten year old kid was doing by himself on what could only be described as “the mattress floor”. I quickly ran to the other side of the escalator column and worked my way back down.
Now I live and work here. I’ve been in the Eaton Centre enough times since coming to Toronto in 1999 that I’m not overblown with the shear scale of the block-long, multifloored corridor. However, I usually try to walk past the fountain in the middle, climb to the third (or fourth?) floor bridges and look at the flying geese, and stroll through the dungeon-like computer stores on the sub-levels.
I can now casually stroll through Nathan Phillips Square without keeping an eye on my watch to make sure I’m back at the school bus heading back to Eastview Secondary in Barrie. In fact, I have even walked to the upper walkway, witnessed the lighting of the Christmas tree, ice skated and even proposed to Simone on the outdoor rink. We also went there to get the paperwork for our marriage certificate.
I’ve always wanted to live and work here… sorta. I’m still enough of a small-town boy that Toronto upsets me in many ways on a daily basis. I have been waiting for the full experience for almost a decade and now that I finally get to spend more than seven days a week south of Steeles, east of the 427 and west of the DVP, I find it remarkably comfortable.
Sure the cost of living here is excruciating. A nice house in Barrie can’t buy you a studio condo even in the currently deflating real estate market. And it’s taken me quite a number of years to find drinking holes where the beer isn’t priced as gold. The noise is constant – both visual and audible. My efforts at finding $5 lunches are difficult even though I have far more options in my neighbourhood (in part because I have banned any asian food places on Spadina for the time being… I miss teriyaki chicken too).
And to be honest I agree the CN Tower looks a little “trashy” now, but I really like it.
I guess that nine years of easing into it has helped me handle the full heat of this city better than I assumed that I could.
It’s nice here. I might stay a while.
