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The smell of diesel isn't one that readily comes out of the woven fabric of my coat, and yet as the train pulls up I stand right close to the yellow line. Yes, the yellow line. The yellow line that passengers are advised to stay well back of because at any time high speed trains may pass in either direction, so for you safety, please stand back. A message drilled into my head, as many of the railway announcements are. I will tell you, it is without joke they say this, as at one time I was standing there idly drinking my coffee and blathering on my cell phone when a VIA Rail train went through the station so fast I thought I would be sucked out onto the tracks in it's wake.
The smell of crisp winter and diesel dances on my nostrils, as it often does these bleak winter days where I stand, with my half black and white hair teased up huge, hot pink eyeshadow, skinny jeans and pumps, massive faux ostrich bag tucked under my arm filled with magazines and my discman, pumping out Simon and Garfunkle at full blast. The suits and ties and the aged looking women huff and grumble as I stand in their midst . . . this is all part of the fun I tell myself. It's 7:28, this train is 8 minutes late. Nobody is impressed, it's cold many people are heard to say. I think to myself, this IS Canada after all. You would think that the people who run the railways would be prepared for a slight storm, a cold blustery day when switches are liable to freeze or tracks to drift over.
You would also think, that middle aged men and women, would be an orderly group. Not like those days in elementary school of "cutting lines" and pushing and shoving. Alas, but no, you are wrong. I am jostled and pushed through a throng of people onto the car, up the stairs and into a seat. People push, shove, and swear their way onto the train, the process of boarding feels like it would look like cattle being shoved up onto a truck or some other unorganized barnyard confusion.
No matter. We are all aboard and on the way. This train, is not express, the conductor says. People grumble. Some people look half dead. I sit perk and pretty, excited. It might be Monday morning, but I am going shopping. Yes, me. Spendoholic . . . I am going downtown, to buy buy buy, spend spend spend. "First stop, Clarkson," blares over the loudspeaker. People roll their eyes and talk of past experiences in Clarkson. I think to myself of the KFC I can never manage to get to by road, but I can see from the tracks. I put my ear phones in, and settle into the fashionista appearance I wish to impose on people. It never works, I have too much face metal, but I try anyways.
The train ride is forty minutes. It seems longer than normal, and it probably was. Frozen switches meant delays this morning, it meant trains were arriving in Union on the wrong tracks. I look out the window at the sunrise and I think, I really did get up this early, to go shopping. The sun glints off the snowflakes looks inviting, I have to suppress my urge to stick my tongue out to catch it as I come off the train. I dawdle, as I so often do when I know the staircases will be full of a crush. I stand and gaze upwards to the ceiling, watching the snow come down between the covers. It looks so clean, so white, so fresh; although I know its full of pollution, besides. I am trying to look sophisticated here. I pull my draping of a scarf around my body, tug my jacket down and check my purse. Wallet on top. It's Starbuck's time.
As I descend the stairs into the Union Station concourse, the overwhelming noise of clicking heels, wheeling briefcases, shouts and laughter, orders of McDonald's, Second Cup, and Cinnabon, ticket purchases and the ring of the lotto center hits me like a brick in the face. I smile, here I am faceless, just a nobody in the crowd, and I like this. I am free to walk my own pace, albeit there are so many slow walkers sometimes I want to just punch in the back of the head, I am free to think, to laugh, to stop and look. To admire. To go one direction, turn around and go the opposite without anyone yelling, "HEY, where are you going?" I cut across the brick floor with its large colorful printed ads plastered on top. I wonder when brick flooring went out of style.
I often wonder things as I walk through the city. One of my favorite things to do is ride the subway and make up life stories for the people I can see. I think about all of them and what they could be doing, if a good one sticks out I will keep their story going in my head until they get off. I see so many people on the commute downtown whether on the train, bus, or subway. They sometimes look the complete opposite of what you know they are. I have become so good at picking up on what a person is really like just from their mannerism and the way they talk.
I wonder what drove Mayor Mel Lastman to be in the striped PJs on the furniture commercials after losing office. I look at the buildings and the sun glinting off the windows in the summer. The late afternoon glow warming my skin and bringing a happy carefree vibe over the city; the snow swirling on its way down in the dead of winter that gives everyone that crabby mood and causes everything to be rushed. The traffic jams, the smell of exhaust and subway fumes mingling with the smell of coffee shops and pancake houses. The calls of pedestrians to street cars, the slamming of fists on hoods, the splash of the slush. The way little kids dawdle and look at the mannequins in The Bay windows with such awe while their parents drag them through the brown chunky slush off somewhere.
I walk through the doors towards the subway, and turn away from the hot dog vendor. The idea of street meat at this hour really makes my stomach churn. Through the crowd of business and random people causing the second hand smoke cloud, I walk to the other set of doors. The doors marked PATH. Where I will undoubtedly stand in an ungodly long line to buy a cup of way-too-hot-to-drink coffee that I will pay too much for in my mother's eyes. For when she always says, "The way the green and white cup looks? The way you feel important in your big shoes big glasses big bag and big coffee world?" I always laugh and say, "Sometimes Mum, you need to pay for quality." It's a line, she so often used on me.
Finally. It is a quarter to nine. Stores will be opening soon. Coffee in hand, sunglasses on as the low cold morning sun glares right down the road, I pick my way through the underground mall to the stairs leading into the TD Canada Trust Tower on Bay. I am greeted with an onslaught of clacking heels and briefcases as I ascend. The smell here is of money, pure and true. I feel, out of place, in this building but I like to walk around on the glass floor, out the massive spinning doors and off onto Bay. I head north, towards Bloor. On foot, in heels. Yes. That is the way of the city. I am assimilated into a group of people similarly dressed, minus the piercings and wild hair. They are on cell phones, they are smoking, they are looking cold and angry and like they just want to go back to bed. We all have Starbucks. We all have huge sunglasses. We all have an attitude problem.
I wonder what it is like to be them. Working class making more than enough to survive but not enough to afford Toronto housing. Or maybe they do. I wonder then, if any of them should be arriving places in town cars instead of on foot. Maybe, they are like me. They like to walk around the city and daydream of things they can't quite put their finger one when you ask, "What are you thinking about?" and so reply with a simple, "Nothing." I wonder if they worry about money, their kids, the dog . . . do they have a dog? Or even kids? Do they even care about anything I care about? Suddenly, in a place where I feel so big, I suddenly feel so small. It's almost overwhelming and as I try to catch my breath the lights change.
It's always that way though. You want to stop and say I want to get out, I want off this crazy thing! And then the light changes and it's go forward, go faster, go longer. Go blindly into where we lead you because, the crowd is going there. Sometimes, I want to scream out that I am not ready for this. Nobody gave me the playbook, what do I do next? I want to stop and kick my heels off, wipe the makeup from my face and replace it with dirt, to run barefoot through the playground and fall, have my mother pick me up and tell me it's not as bad as it looks. My mother still tells me, that things are not as bad as they look.
I am climbing on a new jungle gym, this is just a park I have never been to before . . . I begged and pleaded to come to this place. I tried so hard to grow up faster so I could get here and I know I will look back one day, and I will want to come back to these days of confusion. Honestly, all I can feel is anger and resentment. Growing up is hard, and I am not ready. I want to go back to what I know. What I feel safe in.
-BP
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