A New Power Rises in the East

When I was in high school, the city was divided North-South. The Northenders had mullets, drove Camaros, wore tight black jeans, and listened to heavy metal. They parked their Camaros in the Toys-R-Us parking lot and compared engines of a Friday night. The Southenders were rich, snobby preps who studied for their IB exams and/or got drunk at basketball games of a Friday night - or so my Eastender husband tells me. I would have painted the Southenders differently, being one.

At the time, the East End was dead to me. It only had one high school and a lame mall. It was a non-entity.

Twelve years later, I fear the East End. It is a bloating, teeming, florid conglomeration of our neediest, most thoughtless desires. Feeling lonely, and in need of a new coffee table for a pick-me up? Drive your SUV down a warren of poorly-planned, treeless roads to an Ikea knock-off box store. Want a glass column filled with coloured pebbles for your coffee table? Visit one of many dollar stores or craft bazaars. Crave a faux Italian eating experience? Select from several chain restaurants with patios overlooking neighbouring concrete parking lots. Still not happy? Why not? Don't you live in an enormous beige stucco pasteboard house overlooking mud flats on the eastern edge of the city? Is your daily solo commute downtown not quite long enough to prove that you live in the most desirable eastern location?? Is your lawn sprouting a weed???

I have a feeling this will be the first of a few posts about the east end.

Regina Nostalgia

Thank you The Critic for starting this page. I’ve been away living in Toronto for almost four years and my last visit was a week long, back in October 2006. A week is not a lot of time to observe how the city is really changing, so my recollections of my hometown are already way outdated. I’m returning for eight months on contract for work. It will be interesting to jot down my nostalgic notions of the place before I get to know the new Regina.

Unlike The Critic, I love change. Regina stayed the same for too long for me. The same job for a small company. The same walk through same deteriorating downtown. The same students at the fitness centre where I taught. The same pubs, the same stores, the same faces at the super market.

When I moved to Toronto (I moved for love, not for Toronto), I discovered what transition is really about. I swear, businesses in my neighbourhood rotate every month. A Thai restaurant is suddenly a water specialty store (?). That girl down the street who looked friendly moved before I could ever say hi. I have yet to see the same person twice at my gym. This city changes on the hour and sometimes it makes me very nervous.

I missed familiarity. Regina started to look better and better. In Regina, I not only knew how to get somewhere, I knew the shortcut. I had a great routine. I knew people. I could afford to buy a house someday soon (though I hear that may not be the case anymore). Overall, I think I was healthier and happier.

Or, was I? This is the Grand Experiment for me.

Things I’m looking forward to:

• Knowing where everything is
• Wide, open spaces to run the dog
  
• Sky you can see to the end
• Fewer line-ups
• Fresh, breathable air
• Rider pride enthusiasm and community spirit

Things I’m not looking forward to (and that are certainly not unique to Regina):

• That suburb feeling and big box store culture
• Having no choice but to buy a car
• Polite but firm dismissal of anything having to do with Toronto. Regina can be very “why would you ever live anywhere else?" More so than Toronto, actually (it’s too busy gazing at London, New York and LA, but that’s another column).

I think that a lot of these are assumptions based on nostalgia and memory, both suspect on a good day. The Real Regina might be something completely different by now. Will I love it? Will I hate it? Will I have absolutely no opinion at all?

I wonder.

Is there still a turtle at Les Sherman park?

Kicking off the Campaign

Regina is the place that I always come home to. I've lived in a big west coast city, a small northern village, a Eurasian capital, and a university town in the Deep South, but I've always come home to this claustrophobe's paradise. I appreciate Regina anew each time I return. After my last sojourn away, I am proclaiming my love for Regina because I have never seen a cockroach here. (No, don't tell me your cockroach stories. I have never seen one here and never intend to.) I love the tenacious handplanted trees that blanket the city. I enjoy the small city size that allows me to frequently run into people I know and yet easily avoid seeing people I don't want to see. Mostly, I like the familiarity and the memories that places evoke - I'm an elderly person at heart.

Because I am elderly-hearted, I hate change. You could chalk up this curmudgeonly blog to my excessive nostalgia - if I hadn't recruited other ex-pat Reginans to contribute as well. There have been incremental changes for a while now, but in this past year, Regina has changed remarkably. Perhaps irrevocably. And we're going to complain about it.

Let the finely honed, articulate, incisive carping begin!