Ash Clouds and Empty Cities

My friend N. was trapped in Berlin last month during the fall out from Iceland's volcano. Her three day stay turned in to a nine day stay before she was finally able to make it back to Oxford. N. explained that the city seemed to be paused, no one was leaving, and no one was coming in. I read an article by a journalist based in London who described how the city was empty of both many of its inhabitants (the volcano erupting during school holidays, thus trapping a lot of vacationing Londoners abroad) and of tourists, who couldn't get in due to the cancelled flights. He said he'd never seen London so empty, and that he really appreciated it like that.

These thoughts of static Berlin and London bring to mind images of ski towns in summer or beach towns in winter. I can never decide if I like them or not. On the one hand, it's nice to be somewhere that is normally bustling and crowded and instead have it all to yourself. But on the other hand, something seems really off. There is this lonely, abandoned, disused feeling that permeates and sometimes makes me feel utterly alone.

I was also reminded of a somewhat related incident closer to home. Last summer all City of Toronto workers were on strike. While the largest downside was the lack of garbage pick up (public garbage cans on the streets were the most disgusting as they were literally overflowing with trash...), there were some upsides, depending on who you were and where you lived. I read an interesting article in the Toronto Star in which a woman who lived on Ward's Island (one of the Toronto islands located in Lake Ontario, just across from downtown) described how she was actually enjoying the strike. City of Toronto employees operate the ferries which ship mainland residents and tourists to and from the islands (during the strike there was still one ferry running - maybe by a private company? - to let actual residents of Ward's Island get back and forth). So no regular ferry service meant the islands were very quiet. The woman interviewed said it was really peaceful, and that the island residents were savouring having their home completely to themselves during a time of the year when that never usually happens.

I've never been in Paris in August - the month in which most Parisians supposedly leave en masse for the beaches and sun in Cannes and St Tropez, and Paris becomes overrun by tourists. But the whole concept of that month fascinates me. The underlying implication seems to be that while the Parisians want to enjoy a summer vacation by the Mediterranean, they also want to get out of Paris precisely to avoid all the tourists. It seems like a mutual (unfounded) dislike in which tourists love to say Parisians are rude, and Parisians love to hate tourists. I, for one, don't find Parisians noticeably ruder than inhabitants of any other city, and I also don't find tourists in Paris any worse than tourists in other cities. I do, though, think it would be very cool if one August there was another volcano ash problem (or something along those lines)keeping all the tourists out and letting the Parisians -who for whatever reason did not go south- the chance to have their city all to themselves.

All About the Lace

Twice a year, in January and July, all the stores in Paris have big sales (soldes in French). I arrived in Paris in January 2007 in the middle of them. But preoccupied with finding a place to live and getting my life in order, shopping was forced to take a back seat. Luckily, I was still in Paris come July. Walking home one warm summer day I decided on a whim to go into this lingerie store I'd long had my eye on. One hour later, I'd tried on half a dozen night gowns and was leaving the store with a black nightie with lace trim. The next July, back in Paris doing research for my masters, I happily indulged in more sales and more lingerie - complete with lace trim.

It seems my favourite material just might be lace. It is the perfect compliment to clothing of any kind, especially lingerie. Somehow wearing a nightgown or camisole that has lace in it makes me love it all the more. It's very pretty and feels nice as a fabric too. Lace also works well on its own. I already have a lace shirt, and black lace leggings, and my dream is to one day have a lace dress.

But lace and lingerie aside, sleepwear (of all kinds) are my favorite type of clothing. Maybe it's because I really like staying home, in bed and in my pajamas, reading or on my computer. So I want to have a good wardrobe for those activities. I also like how sleepwear is supposed to be both comfortable, but also any number of other adjectives like pretty/cute/sexy/warm. A person can pick and choose depending on their mood. Even though I am asleep the majority of the time I wear any sleepwear, it's still nice to go to sleep and to wake up wearing something I like and that makes me happy.

I sometimes think about and miss Paris, and its (among other things) fabulous lingerie stores. But most fortunately, Toronto has good ones too, one of which (Beestung, see picture below) happens to be about a 7 minute walk from my house. After seeing and falling in love with a nightgown in the window, after walking by it several times over a two week period, I finally went in there on a chilly Sunday afternoon in March and bought it, despite the lack of soldes. I'll always love Paris for (among other things) introducing me to excellent lingerie, but it's nice to know I can still get my fix on this side of the Atlantic.

Across the Border, just a minute away

A few weeks ago C. and I went to Niagara Falls. It struck me, as we stared out across the falls and over to the American side, that the US-Canada border is fairly nondescript. Though I've never been to Niagara Falls, New York I imagine it is just an extension of Niagara Falls, Ontario; the same language, fast food joints, flashing signs, tacky motels and extra large casinos - all with the falls as a dramatic backdrop.

Two years ago, S. and I drove through El Paso, Texas en route to Los Angeles. My eyes were glued to the views of Ciudad Juarez, hilly and cramped, across the Rio Grande. There was no mistaking that Ciudad Juarez belonged to a different country. It was striking how different it was, and how the Rio Grande - not very wide in diameter - could have such distinct cities on each side of its banks. We could see lots of people, running or milling around in front of houses that had tin roofs, and looked more like shacks. El Paso looked more American - typical apartment buildings, familiar gas stations, nothing out of the ordinary.

I had a different border experience, however, out in the middle of nowhere. Last June, J. and I went to Big Bend National Park in West Texas, which is located on the border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila. Under bright blue skies and air thick with heat and adventure, we ventured to the banks of the Rio Grande. Big Bend is never that crowded, and was even less so that day, and so J. and I had the shores of the river, and by extension the whole border, to ourselves. It felt a bit like the wild west, like we were on the frontier and were about to make some great discovery, even though the landscape looked nearly identical on the other side. I had to keep reminding myself "That's Mexico!" In a sense it was similar to the two Niagara Falls in that there were no noticeable differences. I waded into the water (warm, brown, silty, and surprisingly soft on my feet) and though I didn't go far, I can't say I wasn't tempted by the idea of wading and/or swimming to the other side. It would have been so easy to cross that mysterious, invisible line (so mysterious, and invisible who even knows exactly where it is...) and seek my fortune on Mexican soil....

All for Spring Forward!

I was surprised last week when reading a post on the Huffington Post's Living Section about daylight savings time that many people in the comments section were not fans. They complained about how it was so dark in the mornings now, about losing an extra hour of sleep, of how they didn't need that extra hour of light tacked on at the end of the day. I couldn't disagree more!I look forward to 'springing forward' and putting the clocks one hour ahead from the moment we put the clocks back in November.

Psychologically, turning the clocks back in November really affects me. It's hard to look outside the window around 5 pm and have it already be dark. Somehow I always think of the days as being a lot more difficult to get through when they get dark so early, which is actually kind of odd because you could argue that it's easier to get through a day when it appears to end sooner. Either way, I always feel this undeniable sense of relief when I turn the clocks forward in March. I've made it through another winter, another period of dark days and cold weather, and for the foreseeable future it's bright days ahead. It's a really great feeling, and a feeling that easily gets me through those first few mornings when it's tough to lose out on an hour of sleep.

In early March, so before the clocks had changed, I came upon this recording of a cool radio segment about a woman who had spent one year in Antarctica - from September to March there was 24 hours of daylight, and from March to September 24 hours of darkness. She described how she suffered from a hormonal imbalance called T3 syndrome (which is caused by lack of light) during the long winter. She said her brain literally slowed down and stopped working as well. But on the flip side, she talked about how amazing it was to step outside in the middle of the afternoon and see a dark sky full of stars. She said seeing both the moon and planet Mars were especially fabulous; and that it seemed like Mars was shining extra bright just for her. I listened to the radio segment twice because I liked it so much. And while I would have to be paid millions of dollars to even consider spending an entire winter in Antarctica, I do have to admit that seeing the stars and Mars and the moon in the middle of the afternoon would be incredible. Even on the darkest day of winter here, I can never see stars as soon as it gets dark.

It's interesting that the majority of those Huffington Post commentators seemed to want lightness in the morning as opposed to at night. Even though I tend to usually get up fairly early, I would always much rather have the extra hour of light at the end of the day. It's nice to have brightness outside for longer; you can leave your lights off for longer, can walk home in daylight at 7 pm... Although over this past fall and winter I've realized how pleasant it is to wake up to/with natural sunlight. My bedroom in my apt in Austin last year was so dark. I always kept the blinds closed as the windows opened onto the outdoor hallway, which other people in the apt complex walked on everyday. I spent as much time as I could in the rest of my apt, really only going into my bedroom to sleep. My bedroom in Toronto, however, has three windows. I keep the curtains open all the time on two of them and I get so much natural light. The mornings that I do sleep in and wake up when it's already bright are really lovely; it feels as though the light is gently lulling me awake. I am determined that wherever I live next year, my bedroom must have an abundance of natural light. Until then, I am going to enjoy springing forward into longer and brighter days.

To The Suburbs & Back

Ever since I was little, I'd been one of those city people who loved big cities and everything they offered, and had never been able to understand why people chose to live in the suburbs. I pictured row upon row of identical houses (with identical swimming pools to match), boring strip malls, being so far away from the action and the interesting restaurants/streets/houses/buildings/cafes/museums/etc in the actual city, and wondered - where is the appeal in that? Living in midtown/north Toronto my whole life, when leaving my house, 9 times out of 10 I headed south (towards downtown and the lake), except if I was going to A.'s house, or to the grocery store. But all that changed last September, when I started working in the far northeast corner of the city, and even more so this past January, when I started working in Markham - a quintessential suburb of Toronto.

I first drove out to the Markham campus of the school I work at a few days before classes started - to both make sure I could find it, and to get a lay of the land. Despite being from Toronto, I could only remember having gone to Markham once before, on the last day of school of grade 11. A girl in the grade above lived in Markham and her family was moving, so she had a party in a house without furniture. Although, there were so many people there, I almost didn't notice the lack of it. Everyone sat on the floor, signing yearbooks, talking, drinking beer. I sat next to my boyfriend at the time, who was a year ahead and was graduating, and listened to him and his friends celebrate the fact that they were done. Around midnight we went for a walk down the street, him so happy he was done high school and going to university, me sad for the same reasons. After a few blocks there wasn't much more to say, and I became aware of how quiet it was - a suburban quiet I thought at the time, one I was sure didn't exist anywhere in Toronto.

Now I go to Markham twice a week; I'm the opposite of the norm, as unlike the thousands of people who live in the suburbs and work in the city, I work in the suburbs and live in the city. I have to admit I like it. It's true I don't see a lot of it. My work is right off the highway, so my perception of Markham is somewhat limited. But my building has great views (albeit mostly of the highway and cars but you can see a lot of sky too) and is convenient to get to. Since I'm going against the normal traffic flow, it doesn't take long to get to and from work. In fact, the longest part of my drive is after I get off the highway back in Toronto and have to navigate city streets to get to my house.

Old habits die hard though. Despite having made this drive many times now, and accepting that I work in Markham, whenever I pass the big Toronto sign (see picture below) on highway 404 as I drive home from work, I always feel mildly glad and relieved to be back in the city. One Monday in February there was a big snowstorm which caused horrible traffic going both directions on the 404 and I was half an hour late for my writing class downtown. At the break I explained to everyone that I was late because I work in Markham, but then quickly added "I don't live there though!" Afterwards I was really embarrassed I'd placed such emphasis on not having lived there, like I thought it was somehow a bad thing. I realized that if I've learned anything in my time working in Markham, it's that the people who work and go to school there are really great, and do not at all fit the silly stereotypes I had of people who live in the suburbs. In fact, I'm really glad I've had the opportunity to have a lot of my stereotypes debunked. And while I suspect there will always be a part of me that wants to make it very clear to other people that I do not live in the suburbs, I think that from now on I'll be able to do a better job keeping it in check.

Marvels of Matching

Over the past two months I've seen so many people wearing their Red Vancouver 2010 mitts. It was exciting each and every time to see that I was wearing the same mitts as someone else (and that they were obviously as excited about the Olympics as I was), and it reminded me how fabulous I think it is to match!

It's odd in a way, because aren't we supposed to want to stand out? be individual? not share our pants/shoes/socks/accessories/style with others? And matching, in some ways, goes against all that. In one of my favourite episodes of Beverly Hills 90210 Brenda and Kelly wore the exact same dress to the prom. How terrible!! High school prom dresses and wanting to be unique aside, it's really fun to match! Plus it's very easy to do it in a way that combines individuality with connectedness by matching with friends who don't live in the same place as me.

Matching with live-on-the-other-side of the continent friends is great. When visiting K. a while ago, we were shoe shopping and decided to buy the exact same pair of these tan coloured low heeled shoes because we don't live in the same place! In truth, I don't think I'd really mind that much going to the same party or restaurant or wherever wearing the same shoes as K. In fact, I think I'd be pretty proud of it. But it is nice to be the only person at the restaurant/party/wherever with the really cool shoes everyone compliments you on. (In fact now that I think of it, A. and I had very similar striped green and navy blues shirts our freshman year at Berkeley. One time I told him he had to wear that shirt the next day, and then I wore my version too. So I guess I do like matching in all its guises!) L. and I were in New York in December and she admired my pants. I told her which store I had bought them at (conveniently they have locations around the world), and the next day L. owned the exact same pair. Talk about teamwork! And matching! Another day in December I was at Bath & Body Works to buy some bubble bath when I came across these fuzzy, cozy pink socks. Before I knew it, I was leaving the store with some bubble bath, and 2 pairs of identical pink socks - one for me, and one for S. I was very excited to write in the card that accompanied S.'s socks that I had a pair too, and that we now matched!

So for me, matching with friends (especially far away friends) is lovely. Every time I wear the tan shoes I think of K., and the pink socks I think of S. I know I'd choose all my favourite people living in the same city over never getting to match with anyone again in my life; but since I know I can't have that, matching is a very good alternative.

Rivers to skate away on

I was in Ottawa last Friday, and finally got a chance to skate on the Rideau Canal, the world's longest skating rink. Unfortunately, timing issues and lack of skate rentals downtown conspired against us, meaning we didn't get on the ice until it was dark. And it just wasn't as good. The lighting was pretty bad, making it difficult to see - pretty necessary when skating on a bumpy, naturally frozen surface. I'm still glad I got the chance to skate on it though. And I'd like to think that if I lived in Ottawa I'd skate on it as often as possible. Apparently some students, depending on where they live in Ottawa, are able to skate to their university during the winter. How cool is that! As much as I love walking places, I think I'd be happy to skate places instead for 3 months of every year. The only problem would be where to put your skates once you reached your destination. Although I did see a fair share of people walking the streets of Ottawa (particularly those close to the Canal) with their skates slung over their shoulders. You could tell they were seasoned skaters...

Skating is definitely one of my favourite parts of winter; and while it probably is extra nice to do it outside, I like indoor rinks too. They all share this particular smell of artificial ice, excitement, and cheerfulness. Though most skating rinks (indoor and outdoor) share the same shape I don't get tired of it. I can go round and round and round, never feeling bored or dizzy. It is especially easy to not notice the same old pattern when skating with someone else. (My favourites being S. and L. and J. who did a phenomenal job when we skated with him at Rockfeller Center!)

So while I generally do prefer skating with others, I wish I felt better about skating alone. I have no problem swimming alone (in oceans or swimming pools) or walking alone when other people are in the pool or on the street. But I don't like skating alone in Toronto. I went to the local outdoor rink near my house one time last winter and I just felt awkward. Everyone else was there with their kids or their friends or someone, and even though I'm sure no one was staring at me or gave a second (or even a first) thought to the fact that I was there alone, I didn't like it. With swimming your face is in the water at least half the time, and with walking, you're going somewhere, but skating alone on a rink with other people is really unappealing to me. It's annoying too because neither S. nor L. nor J. live in Toronto. So I really have not been very good about going skating this winter, despite it being something I love.

I would be totally happy, however, to skate alone on a totally secluded rink with no one else around. I would love that actually. It's the other people and the zamboni guys and the ice monitors and all the other people that have every right to be on a public rink that get in the way of my dreams! A long standing fantasy of mine, which I hope to one day fulfill, is to spend a week at some secluded cabin somewhere in the French (or Swiss, or maybe even Italian or Austrian - I am not picky) Alps, a short walk away from a gorgeous and perpetually empty Alpine lake frozen into a skating rink. (Something like the picture below, except I'd be the only person on it.) Someone else (or multiple people) could be with me at the cabin but the lake/skating rink would be all mine. Every morning (and maybe again around twilight) I'd sling my skates over my shoulder and walk to the skating lake where I'd skate round and round, in perfect solitude with no one else around, to my heart's content.

In the meantime, I think I will try to get in some more skating before winter ends!