Wait for me

As it may have come across on this blog, I love Toronto. And now that my trip is approaching, a traditional Genet phenomenon is creeping up... This seems to contradict a previous post, but it's more innocuous than that.

I always have a few days of doubt and regret about my trips. The feelings are very fleeting and disappear once I'm at the airport (and they are probably based on one incident in 1998 that I shall share later), but I always feel that I may miss something that is happening here at home that is important. Or that I will return to a changed place, however subtle. I also worry about people and work and that stuff, but it's mostly a theoretical "what if?" that disturbs me. It's very dumb and I guess it questions my routine here, but it happens none-the-less. This being my first real trip since dad's passing and the fact that Tenis' honeymoon overlaps with mine adds an extra layer since Yoda will be alone, as does a recent blow-out the Boyf and I had. But generally, it is the idea of missing not being here that is the sub-text to all these temporary feelings.

Once, this sentiment came true. It was during the 2003 blackout across the NE US and Ontario. I was in Spain at the time enduring a sadistic heatvwave (temperature at 3am: 46C). Tenis and I were travelling together and we saw BBC reports about a massive power outage (incidentally, we Canucks were initially blamed but it was soooo not our fault). First, I had horrible images of my dad trapped in an elevator and causing it to crash due to his weight... then I thought of friends sweltering in subways. That kind of thing. Everything turned out fine.

When I got home, I realized that this was a seminal event and a Torontonian one. Folks helped each other out, citizens became traffic cops, yadda, yadda. But more impressive was the atmosphere that seems to have imbedded itself in people's memory. Kids hauled their turntables and generators into downtown intersections and held dance parties all over, entire neighbourhoods BBQ'd up thier perishable foods for all to share, bars stayed open by candlelight alone, salsa bands randomly formed... It was a party for all. A communal sense of freedom and joy. No looting or paranoia, but a party. In fact, it is such a part of local lore that it is celebrated every year at Blackout Parties all over. And I'm so, so sad I missed that.

Don't get me wrong... Spain was fantastic. But an event that unique in your hometown tugs on the heartstings differently than sweating and eating 80,000 varieties of seafood with your Type-A sister in Barcelona.

This is probably my most bourgeois post, eh? What can you do?

** Oh... and I'm not suggesting that these things didn't happen elsewhere... I just don't know about anything outside the Torornto experience.