Jon Kane.tumblr.com

I kinda liked the format of the last post, so I’m going to try it again.

1. I think I like the last post because I didn’t have to worry about structure or trying to say anything meaningful, I just wrote down what was in my head.

2. Toronto is an awesome place to live. I love it dearly. Most of you knew that already.

3. When I first moved here in 2003, it wasn’t with the intention of moving here permanently. I was just looking to break out of the monotonous lifestyle that I had in Glasgow. If I hadn’t moved, I’d probably be working for a bank, doing pretty dull paperwork. That was the motivation for moving. I was offered a promotion at my job (which I hated) and although I knew that it would’ve been a positive step to take the position, I didn’t want to have the same existence as everyone else. I wanted to travel to see if it was possible for there to be a better way, and I knew that if I didn’t do it then, I’d never get to. So instead of taking the promotion, I quit the job and moved to Toronto three months later. It remains to this day the best thing I ever did. Everything good that has happened to me in the last 8 years were a direct result of that first decision. 

3b. It was a pretty big gamble. I didn’t have work or a real place to live when I came out here. I slept on a couch for the first month.

4. Toronto and I got on almost immediately. As soon as I got a bus downtown I knew that it was a place that would work for me. Something about the bustle and the scale of the city suited me. I spent the first six hours or so wandering around the downtown core, with everything I owned strapped to my back. The adrenaline of actually doing it didn’t wear off for days.

4a. It helped that I moved here at the start of the summer. Never underestimate how important the weather is to your first impressions of a place. If it’d been raining when I first got off the plane, I’d probably have liked it a lot less.

4b. My accent also helped. Being different is good, sometimes (usually when trying to get hired, or when talking to the opposite sex).

5. Most of my first week was spent walking around, but I didn’t venture far from the downtown core. In fact, the whole first year was spent in a very rigid area of the city. There was the part that I knew I liked, and I very rarely ventured out of it. I didn’t go north of Bloor. I didn’t go east of Church. I didn’t go west of Grace St. Looking back at it now, that seems kinda weird that I’d travel so far to be in a new place and then restrict myself (even unconsciously) to a small area. Having said that, I’m willing to bet that the size of that area would be roughly comparable to the size of Glasgow. Maybe it was my way of dealing with the intense scale of the city.

6. Toronto (and Canada) is absurdly huge. It blows my mind every day. I hope it continues to blow my mind. People who have lived and grown up here accept the scale of the buildings and city and country as normal. I’m glad I can see how impressive it is. I’m in awe every time I see the CN tower. I don’t ever want to be unimpressed by it.

7. When I moved here I’d arranged with the local newspaper back home to write a column for them. It went pretty well until I met a girl that I liked. I didn’t write so much after that. That was the first time I thought that I’d quite like to do this writing thing for a living.

7a. Column is another word that I have trouble spelling. I usually put in too many ‘l’s. Weird.

7b. The girl actually works as an editor at a very popular magazine now, which is cool for her. 

8. After I left Canada the first time, I knew that I wanted to go back, and I did a couple of times on holiday. I still wasn’t sure if it was where I wanted to live permanently, though. Most of my time in Toronto to that point had been spent getting drunk and having fun. Very little thought went into whether it’s actually somewhere that I could live and settle down. That all changed when I started dating Holly. In the space of maybe 48 hours everything flipped on it’s head. There was no doubt. I had to move here. She was here, that’s where I wanted to be.

9a. I met my wife in 2003, when I first moved here. She wasn’t my wife then, just an awesome bartender with a cool tattoo. She continues to be an awesome bartender with a cool tattoo. I’m a lot more sober now than I was back then. We didn’t start dating until 2009. I was officially in idiot for 6 years.

9b. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m glad that we didn’t start dating until I was older. I was kind of a douche when I was a kid, particularly when I first moved here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still kind of a douche, but I’m more aware of it now. I had to date a bunch of women before I was capable of appreciating just how perfect for me Holly is.

9c. Don’t worry, I’m not going to turn this essay into a whole thing about how great Holly is. She knows already.

10. Moving here permanently is hard. There’s a lot of money to be made by people looking to take advantage of the fact that you’re not from here but want to be. I’m willing to bet that one of the main reasons for illegal immigration is simply that people can’t afford to go through the official channels. It’s not something I ever considered (thankfully I’ve always had the money) but now that I’m getting close to the other side of the immigration system, I can see why some people go a different route. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I had to leave my wife behind. It’d be worse if we had kids. I have the greatest amount of respect for people from other countries that are trying to make a better life for their families.

11. I live in Leslieville now, which is cool. It’s a part of the city I didn’t really know about until I started working here. Little Italy, the downtown core and the Annex suited me when I was 23. Leslieville suits me now that I’m 29. Read into that what you will.

12. Cabbagetown is a pretty cool area, too. I’d like to spend more time around Ossington in the west end. I’m pretty sure I’m a hipster.

12a. I apologise if I haven’t mentioned how cool the neighbourhood you live in is. I have no doubt that it’s awesome. I just can’t list all of them.

13. It just occurred to me that I first landed here on May 1st 2003. It’s pretty awesome that I wrote this today. It’s weird that seven years have passed.

14. Toronto is a pretty expensive place to live. In my old apartment in Glasgow I paid the equivalent of $400 a month in rent. I pay double that now. I still prefer it here.

15. I recognise that there was a tremendous amount of luck involved in my relocation here. If I hadn’t gotten a job so fast (or even if I’d gotten a job at somewhere other than the Hard Rock Cafe) I would never be in the incredibly fortunate position that I find myself today. I wouldn’t have met Holly. I wouldn’t have made so much money. I would never have met Melinda and I’ve never have considered trying to get on stage and be funny. Life would be very different. That is not to say that I’m playing down my influence on my own situation. I did pretty well, things just could’ve worked out different.

15a. To be clear: the one thing that I’ve learned about moving here is that you have the power to change your situation. You’d be surprised at how resilient and capable of embracing change you are. You make your own luck. You just need to put yourself in a position to take advantage of it. 

15b. Oh, and if you don’t live in Toronto, you should give it a shot. You know what they say, if you can make it here, you’ll make it in most other places in Canada.