Leaving the Party
Walking late at night, free from the noise of the day and the demands and threats of men, I can finally hear my own thoughts.
How I Went Broke Succeeding in Theatre
As curtains rise on Toronto theatres after years of disruption, a generation of creators are wondering if there’s still a place for them on the stage.
Love, COVID, and Other Risks
When the pandemic hit, my partner’s status as an organ transplant recipient became the organizing principle of our lives. As the city opens up, our risk calculations have become more impossible than ever.
Seeing Myself in ‘Indigenous Toronto’
A new anthology traces the Indigenous history of this city, from pre-contact to present day.
From Six Nations to Christie Pits and Back
Moving to Toronto was overwhelming. But this foreign city is just another part of the lands my ancestors have existed on for generations.
A Year Looking at the Numbers
For the last year, seven days a week, I’ve woken up to post the province’s COVID numbers. It turns out people don’t want data—they want someone to tell them how this all ends.
A Long Year
As the months stretched on and days became meaningless, I did the natural thing—turned to 800-page novels and 15-hour German movies just to feel the passage of time in all its punishing slowness.
A Year of Kids Playing Pandemic
When COVID-19 leaked into my children’s make-believe games, I worried they were being traumatized. Maybe I’ve been looking at it the wrong way.
A Year on Two Wheels
My father believed that biking was a way to strengthen our communities. In this strange and sorrow-filled year, I’ve tried to follow his path.
A Place for Those Who Raised Us
In many immigrant families, elders are the pillars of the household. With COVID-19 revealing flaws in the way we treat seniors, what can society learn from how different cultures value aging?
The City Below the Sound
As someone who’s half-deaf, I’ve always moved between two Torontos—the surface city and the muted, shadowy one beneath it.
Here I Am, Stuck in Malvern
When my father died, heading downtown was a way to escape my grief. Now, under lockdown, I see him everywhere.
A Small Town on Copeland Avenue
For years, I’d been craving the community and intimacy of small-town life. Then the pandemic hit and I found that it had been around me the whole time.
A Pandemic Across Time Zones
For the millions of Torontonians with family overseas, COVID has meant not just navigating our own lockdowns, but living through theirs as well.
Cruising Through COVID
I never thought I’d own a car. Now I’m stockpiling groceries and driving through the zoo, locked safe inside my vehicle like the Pope.
My Own Private Island
The ferry is empty. Beavers and mallards rustle through the bush. Without visitors, life on the Toronto Island is quiet and peaceful. It all feels terribly wrong.
Saturday is Just Another Day
Every hour is a hundred years long, and each day is over before it’s begun. In a pandemic, everyone has their own personal theory on the passage of time.
Sunday in the Suburbs
The broad emptiness, the desolate streets, the deadening sameness—it turned out my parents’ suburban neighbourhood was the ideal place to live through a global pandemic.