Tranna

It’s weird to see the Blue Jays hyped as “Canada’s Baseball Team”—as they have always felt intensely Toronto-y to me. Of course, I have rarely lived out of driving distance of a Jays game and also I’m not that into baseball at all, so maybe if I were out of scope but really loved it, I would still try to claim them. It’s easy to idly claim a team I only sort of follow, though I do think the Jays are great, when I’m paying attention, which is rarely. My parents brought me to a game as soon as SkyDome was built and I attended on and off since then, always impressed by the iconic stadium. The name has reportedly changed from SkyDome but that’s stupid—it already had the perfect name.

I have lived in Toronto 23 years now, long enough to drop most of the central consonants, long enough to call my love for the 6ix the longest love affair of my life. And as in a long marriage, I feel casually possessive of everything about Toronto—the sports teams are mine even if I don’t watch them or know about them, parts of ravine system I don’t even like better not be closed off for construction because what I decide suddenly I want to go for a little hike. I was furious when Scarborough Rapid Transit derailed and they decided to just leave it there and shut down the system (I was the one screaming “Re-rail! Re-rail!” late one night on the Bloor line) even though I can’t think of the last time I was on the SRT. The city is mine; I am it—mon semblable, mon frère.

This weekend in Toronto I saw a kid sprint of the bus and go running across the sidewalk, backpack pounding on his back, towards and then into a building that had a sign out front that said, “Life drawing class today.” I saw a man dressed as what I believe is the Flash cartoon character. I saw a booth selling gluten-free dog treats and, separately an obese and elated pug snuffling joyfully at his owner and slowly but surely wriggling out of his harness, in part because he did not have any neck for the harness to clasp around. I saw a gaunt man in a beanie carefully examining packaging ahead of me in the No Frills and then, later, carefully examining packages he pulled from the food donation bin. That’s not quite how you are supposed to do it, but it seemed obvious that no one ought to stop him. I saw a man in a similar beanie reading Kafka on the streetcar. I saw a man in an inflatable sumo wrestler suit walking down the street as if he were not wearing that. I saw a woman with long silver skirt and a different woman with bright silver pumps, both in the middle of the day, both glorious. I saw so many flame coloured trees. I saw two little girls both with disintegrating pigtails absolutely agog over the prospect of a doughnut plastered against the display case and then, a bit curious, edging over to me, a lone grownup eating a doughnut with no child to share it with. I saw a poster for a heart monitor you can wear at the art gallery to see how much the art elevates your pulse. I saw an elderly man with bandages over the side of his face waiting for a streetcar that didn’t come. I eventually worked out that a different streetcar would also take me where I wanted to go but I don’t know what that man did. I saw a different old man wave at a dog who was walking past. I saw a cheese shop that is exactly the same as in my childhood and that, to my horror, The Waverly Hotel is now a posh condo building insultingly called “The Waverly.” I saw an enormous cat, a very large set of infant twins, part of a soap opera that was not in English over someone’s shoulder at the bus stop, and that the Loblaws on Broadview has become a No Frills—sign of the time? I saw the sun at the exact angle as my eyeline and it was perfectly blinding.

Toronto is a very good city for looking at. Some may say others are more beautiful or better designed and this is likely true, but are any more interesting? If you really look?