This morning I woke up from a dream where I sat down in a college classroom for my new semester, and looked up to realize I was surrounded by friends: without me planning it, this class turned out to follow on from one where we all become good friends immediately, and had so much fun all semester - think the tv show Community, but with the whole room. Everyone was smiling at me, greeting me, so happy that we were going to get to spend this time together.
This dream isn’t hard to interpret. A month ago I was in Boston, where I had longtime friends who would get together in a group, and my unconscious is just catching up with the fact that I don’t have that anymore. A part of me thinks I could be on an extended vacation, I’ve got that umbilical cord of chat messages and social media, but it’s getting harder to deny that Toronto is where I live now - a city where, though I’m Canadian and lived in Ontario for over a decade, we didn’t know a single person when we decided to leave. It could be a lonely life if I don’t get out there.
But Toronto is already showing itself to be a spectacular place in the summer - so much going on and so free feeling. It’s not only lifting the weight of dread that caused us to leave the United States in such haste - khatsha and I landing in Canada only 12 weeks after deciding to go, for reasons you can probably guess gestures at the USA - but also the weight of prudishness and repression of the laws in Boston. We’ve already been to the pool-based sex club in Toronto, twice! It’s on Google Maps! (did you know Massachusetts does not have a single sex club, education center or dungeon?) And Toronto Pride was an explosion of happiness, diversity and self-expression on a scale I’ve never seen before. Breathing just feels easier here, and though it runs on money, like all big cities, the abundant charms of things to do, drink and eat seem to include all kinds of people, not just the rich. At least until Ontario winter hits, the city could be a wondrous toy, just made for an NB and boy.
Got to keep moving, surfing the excitement and unbelievable hassle of an international move (as of this writing there is a truck with all our belongings on it, somewhere between Boston and Toronto), so the grief doesn’t catch up. My birthday early this year was a two day hypno play party called the Bubble Party, where we had dozens of balloons, bubble guns, a popcorn bar, mandatory screenings of Rainbow War and Pop Goes the World, and lots more. The idea was to make a bubble from all the sadness in the news and life, and together we more or less succeeded. As khatsha said, I’m glad we didn’t know at the time it was the last one. Some will visit, and surely at least one of our vulnerable friends we are trying to help get out and make it to Toronto will - others won’t be able to, and we’ll try to help from a distance. Someday we’ll feel able to at least cross back for a visit ourselves. But that time is gone.
At the same time so grateful for the passport and financial privilege that gave us a (relatively) easy exit, and for how the maple leaf logos and worn brick houses of Ontario are homey to me. It is no longer subversive if I blast the Weakerthans or Metric, eat All-Dressed chips or say “Grade 6” instead of “6th grade”. I’m a stranger, but it doesn’t feel so strange.
As a side note, I wish I wrote more consistently, because it would be easier to shape my feelings into words with more practice, and also because I wish this blog was a better record of what my life is like. But of course most of the most interesting stuff has to stay private - which means some of the most eventful periods are the least documented. And anyway, I’ve come to consider it a red flag when people have too consistent, well-rounded-seeming of a social media persona.
I’ll always have those 11 years in Boston, that contain my entire hypnokink life to date, and especially the crazy-vivid last 8 years since khatsha arrived. So much to savour, and so much to wrestle with - even if nothing else memorable happened in the whole rest of my life (which, I hope is not the case!) I’d have plenty to chew on. After all those extreme highs and lows, that could make a box set of novels, part of me is so nervous about how draining and heartbreaking community can be sometimes, not to mention the vulnerability it takes to play with new people. It can really kick your ass. But I’m so grateful for those memories and lessons, and the people who made them, and at least right now hopefulness is winning.
Luckily, and mostly thanks to khatsha’s hard work, we’ve already started meeting cool people, especially some nifty Toronto artsy kinksters and hypnokinksters. I didn’t count on already having that fun in Toronto of riffing on suggestions, bitching about Erickson, making pie in the sky plans for events etc that hypnosis people do when they get together, but it’s a great feeling! We’ve been to two munches, and have some great get-togethers coming up.
Community is a basic need. khatsha and I can have a lot of fun together, and keep busy in different ways, especially in these early days when there’s everything to do, but it’s not enough. I had it in Boston, I had it in Italy, and I had it last time I was in Ontario: regularly seeing people in a group, in person, who are happy to see me, who like me, who get me. And being involved in their lives and particularities, in all their triumphs, worries, obsessions, and sorrows, and what’s created when we get together. Can’t hardly wait.
