the beginning

"When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense.
Everything's unknown, virgin..
After you've lived here, walked these streets,
you'll know them inside out.
You'll know these people.
Once you've lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times...
it'll belong to you because you've lived here.
That was about to happen to me, but I didn't know it yet."
- L'Auberge Espagnole

As soon as the smell of winter chill and the first blast of icy wind hit my face, I knew this was it. I was home.

For the next three months, at least.

Toronto is cold and strangely beautiful, just as I remember it. People rush past, bundled up against the cold. Snow flurries dance in spirals, buffetted by the the winter wind.

Beside me, Iris is exclaiming "We're finally here!", as if she couldn't quite believe it yet. I can't blame her. All this, from the plane flight to our new pad, seems almost surreal.

Our car rushes past the highway. Lake Ontario's waters tumble in the distance, and I begin to see the familiar outlines of the CN Tower and downtown Toronto against the infinite greys of the sky. Once unknown, these places now reside in the recesses of my mind, tucked away between all those wonderful moments and memories.

It's both foreign and familiar, like I had seen all this in another lifetime. And I have.

But this time it will be different.

This time Toronto will belong to me.