Things Toronto Taught Me: Part Deux….. or Trois…..

So today I re-started my blog which I had inadvertently abandoned in favour of starting a Twitter business, moving, and getting a new job.  Okay, so the “move” was a 30-minute walk away from my other place, which I stayed at for about one night a month, but still.  I moved.

I got an e-mail that people liked my last post, so I’m gonna post another.  Just like that, you get more reading material.  I can see this becoming cyclic….. and I’m okay with that.

One category I forgot about was my “Things Toronto Taught Me” segment, mostly providing an outlet for my frustrations of society in the biggest city/metropolis/megasuperexpansivethingy in Canada.  Yes, Spell Check, I realize that isn’t a word, but thanks for providing it some colour.  Gahh, I’m in Canada, Spell Check — colour is supposed to be spelled with a “u”!  I digress.

Today’s submission of factoids and junk I learned in the big T.O.:

• Winter doesn’t really start until the snow sticks to the ground….. and that surprisingly won’t happen until the end of December (if then).  In Niagara where I grew up, we’d have snow right at the beginning, and a few weeks full of lake effect winter before Christmas arrived.
• The sickest people in the city will always ride the TTC.
• The ones hacking up a lung will always choose the seat next to you.
• Some people are immune to winter.  This becomes especially evident on Friday and Saturday nights, particularly in front of clubs with long lineups.
• This will always make me giggle to myself, and snuggle deeper into my sensible coat, double-mittens, and an awesomely fuzzy hat (if I can ever find one).
• Uggs were not invented by Canadians.  At least I doubt it.  If they were, well I’m stumped.
• Scarves better not go out of style.
• What few animals there are in the city get dumber as it gets colder.  Today we almost ran over a squirrel who stopped in front of us and pretty much could have written the tunes for his own funeral by the time he realized he should turn back around.
• It may not be winter, but it’s pretty flippin’ cold to me.
• Swans must be pretty smug in the bird world at this time of year.  Okay Toronto didn’t teach me that, I just thought about it now.  But they’re probably all like, “I’m a swan, I’m white, nobody can see me, squawk squawk squaaaaaaaawk.”  Of course their honk is annoying as heck, so they’re probably just as much of a target as usual, just, you know, smug-er.

Um, so that’s all I have to say about that.

Stupid smug swans.

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Cold, Cold, Exerciseless Winter

There is something that’s bugged me about winter: the claim that you can be just as active in the winter months as in the summer months.  I believe this is annoyingly more difficult.  These are my reasons:

• In the summer, you can step outside in a T-shirt and shorts.  In the winter, the amount of time spent getting ready to go outside is proportional to the amount of time you can stand the cold….. and unless you spent more than half an hour getting dressed, you’re not exercising very long out there.
• In the summer, you can exercise with barely any equipment — you can walk, run, play soccer, play tennis, etc….. In the winter, to play a sport outside, you need a.) all your regular winter clothing, b.) to get to a place with a decent amount of snow or ice, c.) expensive equipment like skis, snowboard (exception: skating), d.) access to a place that looks after said snow or ice.
• If you want to work out in a gym in the winter, it’s a.) harder to get to (unless you have one in your building already), b.) it’s still an expense to join (unless it’s free to your building), and c.) you have to rent a locker to put your massive amounts of winter clothing.

I wanna move down South!  🙂

Fall for a Massage

Yay, I’m excited. Today at 3:40, I’ll be going for my birthday massage 🙂

My birthday was a month ago, but it’s really been the first time I’ve had time during the week to use it. It’ll be a nice treat for sure.

It’s weird weather again today, like it’s Fall already. Clouds come and you actually shiver a bit. You avoid walking in the shade. Guhh, winter’s coming. I’ll try to enjoy Fall first though.

Beautiful Blue, Beautiful You

In high school, I came up with a shade of blue.

It was beautiful — a combination of sky blue, light mauve, baby blue.

Every day as I’d walk through the hallways, I’d look up through the windows as I passed to see if today was a Beautiful Blue day, and, if it was, it was a good day.  It became difficult in winter to keep my spirits up, as the cold depresses me sometimes, but if there was a patch where I saw Beautiful Blue skies, it would lift me up and give me strength.

I love nature like others love religion.  In fact, to a certain degree, I equate the two.  This is really very personal but why not…… in my egotistical mind, I would see the colour showing up as a sign, a spiritual offering of a hand to help me stand again — or, if I was already standing, would help lift me to happiness — or, if I was already happy, would help lift me to elation.  Natural beauty is something that never replicates; each instance really is a moment in time to treasure.  You will never have that exact opportunity again to feel its presence, its power, your part in it all.  All you can hope for, if you shun that moment, is another chance.  It is likely for this reason that I have become a fervent advocate of spontaneity; part of carpe diem requires the ability to forgo plans and live for the moment as it presents itself.  Part of beauty is unpredictability.

Beautiful Blue might look different to others.  As much as I describe it, I will never know if anyone else sees the exact shade I do — not that I believe myself to be the only one capable, but when you take into account differences of perception, differences of colour receptor cones in the eyes, differences perhaps of data transmission between cones and the brain?…… but this Beautiful Blue, to me, is nothing less than hope itself, embodied in a shade of pure beauty.

    

A couple years after I’d begun this tradition of sky-searching at school and elsewhere, I was listening to the radio and heard the DJ mention a new song was going to be played by an artist whose songs I knew and liked.  The artist: Holly McNarland.  The title: Beautiful Blue.  This initially stunned me.  Then, my senses came around and I realized: to others, they were simply two words strung together, and could be used to describe a multitude of things…… I suppose.  This is what she has to say about her song:

“The big song [on the cd], ‘Beautiful Blue,’ came a week before the
last time we went into the studio,” she says. “That was shortly
after September 11.  It’s not about that, but the whole vibe, the
whole doomsday thing, was pretty apparent, and I was just
hanging out with my son.  In the middle of all of this tragedy,
I would wake up and have this perfect little angel by my side.”¹

It’s a beautiful song; I loved it immediately, and not simply for the connection I had with it.   One day I’d like to perform it live — in a way, to realize another dream of mine, as I’ve already recently been given the opportunity to realize one of my life dreams of being part of a band.  I don’t want to suggest it, as it’s not particularly in the style we perform, but I figure that the opportunity will somehow present itself at some point in my life — just like the song did initially — if it is meant to be interpreted by my (in comparison) highly unqualified voice.  This is not a case for carpe diem, after all; this is a chance to see just where my Beautiful Blue will guide me next.

      

So, my dear readers, after I expose my vulnerable nature to all your mysteriously faceless souls, I ask you: what is your Beautiful Blue?

      

      

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¹ (http://umusic.ca/hollymcnarland/)