Being a True Account of a Return to My Hometown during the 2021 Winter Holidays

If there are any future generations left out there that want to hear this, I think it should be put on record as one of the strangest and weirdest moments of the year for me. I decided to return to my hometown after avoiding the temptation of returning to see my family over the holidays last year. Covid-19 played its role, but I was also concerned about the trip itself. I have become spoiled using air travel, even if it happened to be sporadic and often overpriced (this year’s rates were ridiculous). But, there were two other options: bus (made worse by the decision to move the station to an even more depressing area of the city) and train (a viable option with my membership in the company’s rewards program and the fact that the building where we catch the train is quite beautiful). My decision was made for me, but I did not anticipate other issues. They say that the trip is often more exciting than the arrival itself. Is this true, based on what I experienced over a very long Tuesday? Let me fill in the details and you can decide for yourself:

Around 11h30: I catch the local bus to a metro and get harangued by a woman wondering out loud about my vacation plans and her very fervent wish that I would take her with me. Despite this obvious temptation, I simply cling to my two simple bags, take the elevator down to the gate, and try to avoid making eye contact with her or anyone else as I let the subway take me in.

Around Noon: I make it to station and check my bank account (a deposit I was expecting was actually made; a real surprise), buy a New Yorker (missed the issue with an article on Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead, but I still enjoy it). I sit near the gate where the display board lists my train on time but also includes a ‘N’ next to the departure time (note to the staff of this or any rail company: if you are going to include a term or abbreviation on your pixel boards, please let the public in on what they actually mean; a real unsurprise). As I sit and wait for the train, I notice how alone I am as I wait for the 13h23 train…until I look down the hall and see that where I am sitting is no longer the line for the passengers. They have them further down and I have to pick up my things and move to the end of a now very long line. My phone is charged, and I can fortunately find it as my vaccination status and tickets are scanned multiple times before I step foot on the train. And I wonder about the food I have stuffed into my backpack (I should have heated things up before heading out).

13h20: my particular seat is shared at a table of four with two complete strangers staring at me. The woman across from me is visited by a man I assume to be a boyfriend or, more likely, husband (I have a private thought about trading seats with him, but they never raise the issue and I never have to be that polite). We never really speak to each other. The other two are students, so I wait for them to speak before I find a way to comment on the book the girl next to me is reading: Anne Bronte’s ‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall’. I always feel a little uncomfortable as a college instructor approaching anyone who is a student when careers are raised in conversation. And everyone has a phone or laptop out. At this moment, just before the train departs, I decide to leave my bulky, school-borrowed Dell in my bag. This does mark me out as the one next to me stops reading and instead looks at what I take to be a Bronte production on her phone and the others cannot stop staring at theirs. My private thought about this is that I would love to meet a woman who can put down their phone for ten minutes at a time (a real turn on at this point), but I realise that I am no better myself with my magazine and books (Yeonmi Park’s ‘In Order to Live’ – a very powerful account of a young girl’s escape from North Korea – and The New Yorker; a piece on Greta Garbo draws me in). We leave on time, and this will be the last moment anything I have planned runs on a schedule.

Around 15h30: Kingston! Usually I celebrate this part of the train trip; it indicates that I am now halfway home (or at least to Toronto). The train halts and we wait for people boarding or disembarking to do what they are going to do. And we wait. And wait. And then…wait some more. An announcement lets us know that there was a security check (whose security, I wonder – theirs or ours?). We wait for at least thirty extra minutes to leave.

Around 16h00: Another delay (Coburg?)

Around 17h30: Another delay (Danforth?)

Around 19h30: Union Station! Maybe I should hold off on all those exclamation points. I wait for the train to empty (takes a while before they trust us enough to leave). In the same station, in the same section where I always step off, I head off in the usual direction to catch a bus to another city…and I see that the entire station is being reconstructed. I walk through what is now a sports centre to find that my bus is now available in the basement of a building that is not clearly labeled for those of us who no longer live here. I get to see a new stadium for a set of teams I do not follow and then wait for a bus that will take another thirty minutes to arrive. A family nearby has no masks and I decide to eat something, call my family, and wonder why I found myself stuck without a car.

20h00 – 21h15: Bus trip. Shared seat with a girl who is also going to see family. Across from me on the main floor, a boy has his suitcase on wheels, just like me. He falls asleep, unlike me. His suitcase – unnoticed by him – rolls around the floor and I engage in a game attempting to kick the luggage around so that somehow it gets back to him in his comatose state. On top of this, the bus gets delayed because of an accident on the road (I see at least two firetrucks, one provincial police car, and the smashed-out vehicle on the road). So, another delay…

21h15 – 21h45: Arrival at Go Station. We all step off, tired and annoyed (I still manage to use my bad French to wish the driver ‘Happy Holidays’, even though my hometown is very Anglo). I walk to the doors of the station…and they are locked. I try another set further down…and it is also locked. We all have to walk around the building, under the tracks, and out to the front. No taxis are waiting at the usual stand, but I see a driver across the road, and he sees me walking down the road. I nod, he nods. He starts the car and pulls over (I still wonder what I would have done without a taxi there – I did not want to call home to wake anyone up). The taxi company, as I remember it, was called ‘Ancaster Taxi’. Perfect, I think. The place I heading to is just a few blocks away from that lively town (a place that makes other towns in my area feel like Las Vegas). When I finally get back, I over tip the driver (well-deserved) and explain how long it has been since I have been back. He seems truly surprised.

And that is how I got back for the delights of suburbia, lousy weather and home. Happy holidays to you all…

Thank you for reading!

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