Not My Best Work…

Until this past November, I hadn’t visited Toronto since 2018. Eight years ago I wanted to share the city I had fallen in love with at first sight with someone I loved (because you know I love you if I choose to share experiences that have literally changed me with you). My older sister joined me to see J.Cole on his K.O.D. tour (featuring Jaden Smith as a first class opening act). There’s something about hearing a song performed live versus in your car during your morning commute that makes it hit harder and mean something different:  “Icon” and “Ninety” were a few of the first songs to make me realize that.

The day we arrived, the weather was “perfectly autumn” for Canada in early October. We sat down for a patio dinner and watched dragonflies flutter around us in the middle of the finance district and I was reminded why for whatever reason the city always felt magical to me. Toronto has a hustle and bustle to it, much like any other city, but it isn’t loud, obnoxious or performative. There’s politeness and consideration to it. It isn’t a city that has to be the loudest to be recognized; there’s a quiet confidence about it. However, the next day Canada remembered exactly who she was and the weather turned damp, cold and rainy. Across the street from our hotel, The CN Tower danced through low hanging, grey clouds like a drunk coed navigating a packed club just trying to find the restroom. My sister traveled the 10 hours with only a heavy sweater and felt grossly unprepared and uncomfortable. In many ways, this unfortunately set the tone of the remainder of the trip. Still, we braved through lost tourists and expensive gentrified tacos and managed to make the best of it.

Fast forward to 2025. It was a challenging year that included the second layoff of my adult life, breakdowns in communication in some of my closest relationships and the gloom and doom of having a government that clearly doesn’t give a damn about the country it’s intended to serve. For all of these reasons and more, Toronto felt like it could be a homecoming for me: the reset I needed to remind myself that I deserve joy in just being, even while the world is convincing you that it’s something you have to repeatedly earn and fight for. My sister agreed over the summer to give the city affectionately known as “The 6ix” another shot. We’d be traveling over the U.S.Thanksgiving holiday (which felt appropriate considering the country’s current circumstances) to check out Leon Thomas’s MUTT Tour. His Toronto venue was “The Danforth”, an intimate venue that ended up reminding me of Philly’s Theater of Living Arts (TLA for short). It’s the kind of venue that artists with a core fan base can usually only perform in a few times before the rest of the world catches on to the vibe. This time my sister made sure she was prepared with appropriate winter wear. 

Unfortunately, as much as I looked forward to the trip, a few weeks before I felt anxiety creeping in. Not because of holiday travel hiccups or the strained relationship between America and its neighbor in the apartment upstairs. I was worried: What if it didn’t hit the same? It was a feeling that I could only compare to spinning the block with an ex you haven’t seen since college. Or, if you’re a fan of Harlem on Amazon Prime, like that awkward sex between Ian and Camille as they struggled to find a familiar rhythm after being apart for so long. What if I had romanticized how I felt about Toronto only to return and realize maybe I wasn’t feeling her as much as I thought I did?

It made me think of the first time me and Toronto met in my late twenties. I stayed in a cute boutique hotel called The Bond Place Hotel that served an amazing but simple breakfast near Dundas Square. It was early August of 2013 and Drake’s OVO Fest was calling me (and remains the best concert I’ve ever attended). And although I came as a fan of one of the biggest hip-hop artists of the time, I left feeling like I found the city I would inevitably call home one day. Me and my best friend at the time who made the trip with me planned our futures while sitting in a park one night and watching what we couldn’t tell were squirrels or rats running by (probably because we had way too much Appleton rum). Our goals included bearing witness to as many Drake lyrics as possible (cringe now, I know, but back then your Instagram post was incomplete without a Take Care inspired caption) It was a time before parenting or anchoring career moves and we felt like we could potentially take a chance and change our lives by changing our country code.

Since then, Toronto has remained as much of a main character in the story of my life as a beloved mentor or the work friend with whom your trauma bond actually grew into true support.

At the time, Toronto was already facing a construction wave that one could only worry would leave condos that would soon block the sun and take the city’s soul with it. I would check on my happy place every now and then as my life in the U.S. changed with parenting responsibilities, career growth and the loss of best friends as you realize your priorities have shifted and your lives are headed in different directions. My cute hotel off of Dundas Square eventually became affordable housing as I watched the city’s cost of living climb and my dream of eventually making the move became increasingly harder to conceive. 

So in the weeks approaching my trip late last year, I was worried that The 6ix would be a stranger: cold, gentrified and filled with people and things that would make me feel out of place unlike the warm welcome I received over 10 years ago.

It didn’t help that we were traveling smack in the middle of a Mercury Retrograde. If you’re a normal person and don’t refer to astrology often to validate or disqualify your life choices, you may not know that “Mercury in Micro-braids” as it’s affectionately called is associated with all things travel hiccups and technology fails. I took it as a sign to overthink and over prepare. I double booked restaurant reservations, checked Expedia daily like a bank account balance and started packing a week before.

Even the bus route had changed since 2018. Pre-Covid Philly had an actual bus station with walls and a public bathroom. Megabus made a direct trip overnight to Toronto with only a few stops for bathroom breaks, driver relief and customs. Our 2025 route had us on a Greyhound with several stops in almost every small town in upstate New York, which turned a 10 hour ride into 13 hours. Lastly, our bus stop in Philly was now outside under the expressway and El train. Leaving at 3 AM had my sister and I outside hoping that a rustle in a bush was only a rat and not someone desperately in need of Narcan. And before you ask, the airfare was ridiculous and I had a deep mistrust for plane travel since the current Presidential administration started slowly plucking safety nets folks didn’t know existed and eliminating important jobs that people of average intelligence assume accomplish nothing all day until you actually realize how many planes are in the sky at any given time. Who would’ve known we actually need skilled folks to coordinate and organize these things?

After 13 hours contorting in seats with greasy skin and gas station snacks to replace actual meals with other holiday travelers who were smart enough to make their way to family and friends early in the week, we finally arrived in Toronto that Tuesday evening. It started to rain pretty steadily as we creeped through rush hour traffic on the Gardiner Expressway. We stepped off the bus into Union Bus Station and proceeded to navigate our way down Bay Street to our hotel which was about a 10-minute walk away. That’s when I felt it. It was the confidence that comes with knowing you can navigate yourself through the world (with the help of Google Maps occasionally). However, it was more than knowing how to follow turn by turn directions. It’s the knowledge I think many women can identify with around 40-something. It’s the moment you truly start to feel like the adult-ier adult you may have looked to in your early 30’s when you felt like you were defrauding your way through the whole grown up thing. It’s the confidence that comes with knowing exactly what you need to feel whole and easily being able to access resources to get it.

Finally, I felt fucking regulated. Becoming accustomed to functioning dysregulated is actually kind of dangerous. It’s not living, it’s surviving. In Toronto, there wasn’t “Breaking News” every ten minutes informing us that the country’s leadership had created a new way to be evil and fuck up citizens’ lives. I mean it’s not a utopia, but it wasn’t Gotham City either. I didn’t have to plan my whole day around being in the school pick-up line by 2:30. There were mimosas, the birth of inside jokes between my and my sister as she yelled at tourists who didn’t hear the tour guide when he announced it was time for them to depart for their Niagara Falls ferry. There was no one hugging my knee begging for an Uncrustable. And although I kind of made the whole trip to see Leon Thomas sing “Dirt on My Shoe” live (which unfortunately didn’t happen) I did realize how much I loved “Muse” and “Just How You Are” after hearing it live. Not even a drunk twenty-something spilling her Cutwater on my shoulder from the balcony above ruined the trip. When I turned around a loudly announced that my North Philly was about to make an appearance, the fear and confusion in her eyes was familiar. It was the eyes of someone who didn’t know this would be a core memory in a few years that might bring her some joy as she navigates a bleak career path or reminisces on a friendship that slowly fell apart.

Toronto was the homecoming I needed. It welcomed me with a warm embrace and whispered, “Remember who the fuck you are, what you’ve accomplished and the intimately amazing life you will continue to  create.” And this time, the heaviness that sat right under my ribcage when I returned to Philly after my very first visited, was missing. What remained was the confirmation that there are many ways to fall in love. If it was up to Hollywood, we would all think that if love doesn’t feel like the tension of choosing between yourself and someone else like in The Summer I Turned Pretty, or sound like the sexual confidence of a Sza song, or look like the sweat and longing you might find in a Tyler Perry sex scene, then it clearly can’t be real. But honestly, my hope is for all women to fall in love with all of the other beautiful offerings of life, and to realize they are just as, if not more valid than romantic love that centers someone else.  Summers in your favorite city. An inside joke with a best friend that still makes you laugh just as hard a decade later. A selfie you refer to as a reminder that you are indeed that bitch you think you are. That first time you heard your favorite song live and sang it word for word with a row full of strangers. How the snowfall on the tree branches behind your house never ceases to be anything but fucking beautiful and amazing. These are the moments that give life meaning. And more than career titles, awards and accomplishments, if someone really wants to know exactly who I am, tell them how much I love Toronto.