At a certain point, I declared that I didn’t want to live in The Beaches district in Toronto. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a lovely, child friendly area in East Toronto. It’s expensive, and a very desirable place to live, particularly for those who are interested in raising their children in a “good area.” I really like the area, but after spending some time there, I decided that I’d feel alienated if I lived there.
Without any children, I felt that Rachelle and I would stick out like sore thumbs, and I, working from home as a childless, essentially jobless “writer,” would have nothing to talk about with anybody. I just felt that the neighbourhood was too upper middle class, too white, too much, I guess, like the area I was raised in Ottawa. I needed some diversity, I said. I needed to live somewhere where there were all sorts of different people from all sorts of different backgrounds, and so, after a rather circuitous route, we’ve ended up in Riverside.
While picking up some lunch the other day, I found myself standing next to a family, also waiting for their pick-up, on the sidewalk. The man, who had a long, gray ponytail and a beard that was convenient rather than fashionable, wore a baseball hat that said KEEP THE DICE ROLLING. He was with a quiet woman and their two young children.
One of the kids, a boy of about five, immediately came over to Heidi and I, while the younger boy, surrounded by three adults smoking like chimneys, stayed in his stroller. The man was excited about something and his voice was rising, “They weren’t even Wrangler or Lee! I couldn’t fucking believe how fucking much they cost! Had some stupid, offbeat Wop name on them, too!” It was at this point that I noticed the boy in the stroller was drinking chocolate milk from his bottle.
The man continued on about the Swine Flu, asserting his opposition to vaccinations, “they can just fucking try it, man. If they put a needle in me, I will stick it in their fucking eye!” He then yelled at his boy, the one who was playing with my dog, “WE JUST GOT THAT DAMNED JACKET CLEANED!! If you don’t watch out, you’ll be dressing up for Halloween as a bad boy, with my foot up your ass!” The mother stood limply by, her eyes glassy.
Later, Rachelle and I went out to The Beaches to look after her sister’s boys while she played volleyball. As we turned off Queen, we saw the dream of the middle class. Lovely houses, all decorated for Halloween, shone beneath the sun. A smiling woman, playing hide-and-seek with her son, hid behind a mailbox while healthy dogs played in the nearby schoolyard. I swear, everybody we saw seemed to radiate good health and good cheer.
I wanted to live there. I wanted to live amid that, whatever that actually was.
It was humbling, in that being forced to confront my prejudices– which say way more about me than anybody else– what I really wanted was to return to an area like the one I grew up in, and live amongst people who I felt were just like me.