ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

Today things are a bit different. I no longer wait tables or sling cappuccinos professionally; Kom Jug Yuen is closed (RIP); and the stretch of Queen between Carlaw and Woodbine has filled in with bustling boutiques, restaurants, and a music venue co-owned by Live Nation and Drake. I never bike hazily anymore (I quit drinking two years ago) and The Beaches are not a faraway land, but a place I visit almost every day with my dog, Toni.

Much like walking my dog, I find that cycling can be a way to shake myself out of a bad mood and reset my mind and body. If the weather’s nice, I’ll bike to Black Canary Café on Kingston Road to write (I’m here right now!) and then swing by the FreshCo on Victoria Park, using the grocery bags as counterweights on the way home. Despite the insanity of cycling in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ traffic, amongst the ever-growing army of e-bikers and Door Dashers, the aggressive drivers and sloth-like streetcars, I still find it has a calming effect on my nervous system. Some alchemical process takes place when I hop on a bike, a process that converts abrasive city noise into soothing sound and valuable information. When I’m apart from the chaos it’s grating; when I become a part of the chaos it’s relaxing.

I recently took my Door Prize 2 out for a rip on a Saturday night, across Danforth into the dreaded West End to meet friends in Trinity Bellwoods Park. Passing through the Annex, I took a certain vicarious pleasure from all the anticipation and romance of the college kids vaping and smoking outside the bars. While I’ve come to feel that the city I knew and loved as a young man has largely devolved into a corporate hologram, there are still certain unscripted moments of beauty that cut through the noise. For instance: a glimpse of pink-tinged clouds through the empty window-frame of a partially demolished church on Bloor (goodbye God, hello Condos!). Or, even better, on the ride home around midnight, peering through the lit-up windows of the ROM’s extension — the part that looks like a spaceship crashed into the building — to see the carefully reconstructed skeletons of long extinct giant reptiles.

When I ride my Door Prize 2, the sounds, sights and smells of the city rush through me faster than I can process them. Yes, I am a creature who finds this calming. I am a creature who, from the saddle of his bicycle, grasps at familiar impressions of a city that is changing faster than the human mind could ever comprehend.