Toronto Report #4: Come Dance the Silence Down Through the Morning
1. A fluffy orange cat was lounging in a patch of sunlight on the sidewalk today. When I meowed at it, it padded towards me and rolled over at my feet, wanting a belly rub. I obliged the creature, beside which my cat Meta would have looked malnourished. In her last e-mail my mother said that Meta has stopped waiting by the living room window after almost two weeks of doing so. If cats have nine lives do they have nine hearts too? If you break a cat's heart will it forgive you, or will it have forgotten you two years later?2. On the way to the airport, my father tuned in to the RJ station, which happened to be airing Beatles songs at 6 in the morning. So the last songs my ears were treated to in Manila were "Penny Lane", "Two of Us", and "In My Life". Part of me scoffed at how contrived it seemed, between tears and sniffling.3. "Mr. Jones" was playing today, at the Second Cup where I drank brewed coffee at the counter with strangers. And I wanted to shake the sleep off someone's eyes to tell him how this song, to me, will always smell of rainy days at the end of summer, Xavier Grille barbecue, and 2005. If I had a phone I'd have called up one of the Bayaws.4. Went to a barbecue today at the house of the former CW coordinator, and finally met my 6 classmates. And--surprise, surprise--the South African girl I'd corresponded with turned out to be white. I think I wanted her to be black for my own selfish reasons. One thing about being the third-world, non-white, non-Canadian girl in my peer group is that it gives me license to be the outsider, to observe, to have my anti-social tendencies excused, to hover on the fringes of conversations I don't want to join.5. My cousin and I were watching a TV special on conjoined twins, who, for some genetic reason, are almost always girls. One of the women interviewed was born with a twin connected to her chest, with whom she shared a liver and other organs. When her twin died soon after, doctors had to separate them. Forty years later, she wonders how much of her body and personality are really her twin's. She describes this visceral missing for the sister she never knew, the pensiveness she feels on birthdays, and the loneliness she's had all her life. (Talk about a conversation-killer: I was born with a twin. She died soon after birth.) This woman saw her twin as the embodiment of all she had lost, all that was missing in her life. Unlike the rest of us bumbling around with this aching emtpiness that wants to be named.6. People on bicycles, not to mention Rollerblades and skateboards, are a common sight on the streets of this city. But the other day, a man on a unicycle was waiting calmly, towering over pedestrians at an intersection. (Who still makes and sells unicycles in this day and age? And what sort of man would buy one, and use it on a busy urban street? These are the people I want to meet.) When the light turned green, he stretched his hands out to the world and pedalled. A punk crossing the street from the opposite direction gave him a smile and a high five.
Toronto Report #3: A Room of One's Own
Apartment-hunting with Maita has been a disaster of humorous proportions. Since we arrived on the 29th and the 30th, most of the good places for September 1 had already been taken. Of the 60+ places we'd called/e-mailed, only around 1/4 were still available. We were left with basement rooms (could you live underground with little to no natural light in winter?), expensive apartments in high-rise buildings ($1200 minimum for 2 bedrooms, multiply by 45 to get the equivalent in pesos), and other options that we couldn't stomach:
1. The Stinky -- Maita and I were chipper, hoping to get lucky on our first try. Then our faces fell: the 2-bedroom apartment was right by a noisy intersection, above a Chinese herbs/acupuncture store, in a building whose state left much to be desired. We went up the rotten wood stairs and hallway -- which smelled of piss. Old piss preserved, clinging to the walls. We ran out of there.
2. The Scary -- The 3-bedroom house on a quiet, residential street looked promising from the outside, with quaint bay windows. Then the door opened and out came white-haired Mrs. Walker with HEAVY CONCEALER under her eyes (which looked like caked Caladryl). She gave us a tour of the house that had cracking walls, a showerhead-less bathroom, and 2 dark rooms that could have had crystal meth addicts hiding in the closets. And she started lecturing: against heavy footsteps (she lived in the basement), smoking (an old tenant set fire to half of the back patio), and overnight visitors. We half-ran out of there.
3. The Iffy -- We took the train to the far Roncesvalle area, which looked like the Polish/Eastern European section of the city, with jazz bars and antique shops nearby. The house had an old man, a big dog, and a fat white guy on the porch. Vlad (the fat white guy) showed us the 2 bedrooms for rent, which were pretty big and bright. But: we'd have no common living area, we'd have to share a bathroom with the family, the dog was allowed in the house, and Vlad had a room right next to one of the bedrooms. All this sounded iffy, even after Vlad lowered the price to $425 per room. We walked out of there.
4. The Kookily Strict -- The 2 rooms for rent ad sounded ideal -- or at least the prices did: $420 and $460. So I ignored the detail that these people had a vegetarian kitchen. We went up to the 4-bedroom house (that had 2 beautiful Persian cats) and were asked to take off our shoes by two people I'll call Olive and Mr. Ugly. We were shown the rooms (which were considerably different in terms of size and window light -- one of us would suffer). And Olive said: no meat cooking in the house. And I asked: how about ham in the fridge, and tuna in cans? And Mr. Ugly said curtly: not too enthusiastic about that. Which is when I shut down, even while Maita continued trying to charm them. I'm sorry, when it comes right down to it, I can't live without SOME sort of flesh (the edible, digestible kind -- and fine, the other kind too). And Mr. Ugly was sullen...and ugly.
5. The Maybe -- The 6-bedroom house very near U of T seemed nice enough, but it would be expensive: $3000 for 6 rooms + utilities + Internet/phone. And Maita's friends weren't too hot about it, over e-mail and in person. The picture at the top of this entry is of what would've been my room on the 3rd floor, with a pretty window facing the front. I'd always wanted to live in an attic with slanted walls and a desk by the window -- even after seeing Secret Window, that Stephen King movie where Johnny Depp plays a writer who lives in an attic and goes mad. Too bad we had to give up this place -- or maybe not. It's going to be hard keeping my sanity intact here.
Toronto Report #2: Perfect Stranger
I never thought my childhood fondness for Bronson Pinchot (a.k.a. the wide-eyed Balki Bartakamous from a tiny Greek island come to live with his long-lost cousin Larry in Chicago, in the 80s sitcom Perfect Strangers) would be relived. But then my cousin Summer threatened to hold up a big sign at the airport's arrival gate -- Kozin Yvana Van De Leon -- just to embarrass me. (She didn't; but I rehearsed the Dance of Joy in my head just in case.)Sometimes I do feel like Balki -- naive and unsure in an unfamiliar city. Other times I'm confident I can go anywhere and do anything, having mastered the transportation system (with subway trains, buses, and streetcars interconnected in an efficient system) in days, with the help of my cousin's trusty transit map and my Metropass -- which, at $85 a month, allows me unlimited access to all transit vehicles. So far, I've gone around Kensington Market, Chinatown, two malls, and the row of stores and restaurants down Bloor and Spadina. One thing I like about taking the subway is getting off at the Spadina station, and walking down the underground red-brick tunnel that connects to the other train line (sort of like Gateway Mall). During a day of apartment-hunting then drinking beer (my first since Monday with the bayaws) with Maita and her friend Paul, I had to pass this tunnel several times, and each time there was a different musician: an old bearded guy who played flamenco-style guitar, a couple of Europeans playing a polka on the violin and accordion, a bald black guy playing something jazzy on his keyboard, and a thin man playing a plaintive version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" -- I had to sit down and listen to this. And I remembered the mixed CD Vlad had made for me -- which had 2 versions of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", followed by another universal tune: "I'm Horny." I've made it a point to always carry coins (1- and 5-cent coins -- grabe, hindi ako sanay na may value uli ang mamera) in my pocket for these subway musicians. Despite the great transit system, I still miss the luxury of (relatively cheap) taxi rides back home. I know, I'm spoiled. And flabby. My calves are still getting used to at least an hour of walking every day (15 minutes to and from the nearest subway stop, then minutes to hours of exploring). And I can't even wear my skirts anymore. The temperature today is 17 degrees Celsius, and it's been showering since there was a tropical storm from New York over the weekend. It would be familiar monsoon weather to me, if not for the cold. I either have to keep wearing pants, or buy tights. (Brown tights with denim and camouflage-print skirts? I don't know...)The other day, I met up and had coffee with B, who took me on a tour of the sprawling U of T campus. Grabe. Most departments have their own buildings, which either look like quaint, brick houses, or tiny adobe cathedrals, like the ones in old Manila. I love the English department, which is housed in this Gothic, Victorian-style building with ivy and moss growing on the walls. (I've taken pictures, but haven't figured out how to upload them yet.) The Robarts library has 14 -- fourteen! -- stories, five of them dedicated to humanities-related stuff. The campus also seems to have an unusual number of squirrel residents, some of which we saw humping romantically under trees.B seems to have lost all traces of being Filipino -- not that he was traditionally Pinoy to begin with. I feel like I'm beginning a friendship again with a stranger.Next: Toronto report #3:The search for a roof over our heads
Toronto Report #1: White (and multi-colored) Spaces
I couldn't focus on reading fiction or anything with continuous slabs of paragraphs during the plane rides, so I ended up digesting Paul Auster's book of selected poems, Disappearances. Here's something from his prose poem "White Spaces" that struck a chord last week:In the realm of the naked eye nothing happens that does not have its beginning and its end. And yet nowhere can we find the place or the moment at which we can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is where it begins, or this is where it ends. For some of us, it has begun before the beginning, and for others of us it will go on happening after the end. Where to find it? Don't look. Either it is here or it is not here. And whoever tries to find refuge in any one place, in any one moment, will never be where he thinks he is. In other words, say your good-byes. It is never too late. It is always too late.
* * *On Race At the immigration office at the Toronto airport, I couldn't help but stare. It was the first time I'd seen so many people of different colors and shapes and sizes before. In Manila, everyone is brown or brownish yellow, and we gawk at the occasional white guy with an arm wrapped around a Pinay. Here, it's a Benetton ad every day: every time I sweep my eyes across an area I see people who are black, white, yellow, brown, pinkish white, brownish black, and all other variations. My eyes will probably get used to it soon enough, but it's still fun for now.The lady at the immigration desk had a bottle of Naya mineral water on her desk. I took that as a good sign. She seemed surprised and impressed that I was going to U of T. As was the Indian taxi driver who asked me right away, "Are you from Philippines?" "Yeah. How could you tell?" He smiled slyly and said, "Only from your good looks."It's funny, I've become acutely aware of other Filipinos in the city. My first night at my cousin's apartment (she's on the first floor, by the elevator/stairs), I heard two people going up, one of them asking, "O, magluluto na ba ako?" On my daily 15-minute walk to the subway, I pass by a Filipino store (that sells Chippy and Sweet Corn chips!) and always see Pinoys in denim jackets nearby. We eye each other and sometimes give a little smile -- I know, it's a fake sense of kinship based purely on being a minority in a multicultural city, but still, it's comforting. On a streetcar on the way to Kensington Market (full of ukay-ukay like thrift stores and fresh produce stalls), a woman beside me mocked her husband, "Naku, lumalabas na naman ang pagka-beho mo!" When I turned and smiled, she added, "O ayan, tinawanan ka tuloy ng ka-lahi mo."Other things I've noted: 1) Each race has its territory in this city -- there's a Chinatown, a Koreatown, a Little Italy, a Greektown, a Little India, and other unofficially named areas populated by the Polish, Filipinos, etc. 2) Each race has its share of plain and stunning people, though most obese people I've seen are Caucasian. 3) Each race has its share of crazy and shady people -- I've seen a Polish guy having a polite conversation with his dog, a Chinese woman muttering to herself and wringing her hands, and a black guy who kept eyeing me at the subway bench as I was waiting for Maita, and who eventually asked, "Hey there, are you waiting for someone? Or are you waiting for me? Would you like to go up and--?" I said no and walked off to another bench.Next: Toronto report #2: Getting around the city
