Letter from Toronto
4 April 2002It is Thursday morning. I'm alone in Annette's office at the university. Today was her turn to work on the computer at home while I loaded Maddy into the bike trailer and hauled her to day care. In about an hour I'll leave here, swing by Mountain Co-op to buy a tail-light for my bike, stop at a pet store to collect Vita's new name tag (she's an outside cat now!) and then pick up my daughter. She'll sleep in the trailer as I ride west. I'll park somewhere to eat lunch and read for a few hours - I'm still churning my way through Faust's Metropolis, a massive history of Berlin - and then bring her to the doctor to deal with the "pink eye" infection that just won't go away.
I have not been at my best for the past few weeks. In mid-March I came down with a flu that morphed into a bad cold and now, well into the third week, I am still coughing up obscene-looking objects, "blood-caked half-digested mice pulled from the gut of a rattlesnake" as I said wearily after a bad morning. At the beginning of it all Maddy was quarantined at home with pink eye and Annette was furiously busy preparing for a job interview, so my life was a long haze of mutual grouchiness, fatigue, headaches, irritation and boredom. I'm over the worst of it now, Maddy has been back in day care, and Annette returned from the interview trip. Life is returning to normal and I'm finally recovering my ability to think straight. (Before this I had managed to stay healthy for almost six months, truly remarkable given how regularly I fell ill last year in Berlin.)
We are still in the grip of winter here, which has not helped our mood or energy levels. Spring tempted us in early March but then the sub-zero temperatures returned. On Tuesday this week it snowed all day, wet muck that disappeared by nightfall, but miserable all the same. We did the sensible thing, bundled Maddy into the jogger and took her downtown to the Eaton Centre and spent three hours shopping while she slept. No sense going outdoors. Yesterday looked better but we were hailed upon riding to and from High Park in the afternoon. Maddy, snug in her trailer, did not care, but Annette and I were pelted.
While I'm not unhappy in Toronto, I miss Berlin more and more. I miss the cafés and the markets and the little shops all within easy walk. I miss the bright, spacious apartments. I miss the stroller-friendly public transit. I miss the cheap rents, subsidized day care and low prices. This weekend my friends will skate the half-marathon, starting and finishing at Alexanderplatz, then rush home to watch professional cycling live on Eurosport (the Tour of Flanders, round two of the World Cup). What's worse, it's been warm and sunny in Berlin. I think there are two reasons why I suddenly miss it now: I've been listening to Radio Eins when the computer is on, and we're drinking Turkish tea again. We found a Turkish grocery at Bloor and Christie and loaded up on Çay, the real thing. Now we can sit at home and drink the little glasses of tea one after another, pouring the concentrate from the small upper pot, filling the glass with boiling water from the large lower pot, stirring in a little sugar and admiring the play of colours through the glass on the polished steel saucer. We love the stuff, but it makes us nostalgic. In particular I remember sitting in the kitchen of our old Kreuzberg apartment, drinking endless glasses in the late afternoon, staring out over the Hof at the rooftops. The Friedrichshain apartment was cleaner and newer and nicer, no question, but somehow the Kreuzberg kitchen felt more comfortable. I think it was the bench by the window, the warm light, the view, and the fact that before Madeleine arrived we had much more to time to just sit drinking tea with nothing particular to do. I promised Annette I wouldn't pine for Berlin, but lately I've found that more difficult.
I do like Toronto so far but I don't feel that I've gotten to know it all that well yet. And I'm not sure how well I will get to know it because we are once again in that delicious limbo, waiting for a decision that will determine where we live next. Annette's interview in Calgary went well, she feels, but of course there are other candidates and we won't hear any news until the middle of April at the earliest. I don't know how I feel about this potential move. Mixed feelings I suppose. Calgary would have some advantages: closer to our families, and very close to her sister; excellent winter sports, including the world's second-fastest indoor speedskating oval and a bobsled run. And let's not forget that Annette needs a tenure-track job more than anything else in the world right now. I wouldn't prevent our moving - with my record of dabbling in and abandoning careers, I can't stop Annette from saving hers - but I would go with a few misgivings. There are potentially interesting things for me to do here, and not much I can imagine doing there. Still, Calgary is a hell of a lot better than Bowling Green, Ohio.
If Calgary doesn't happen, then there's a possibility of a teaching post-doc in Baltimore, or we stay in Toronto and hope that something permanent materializes at the university here, preferably something that would meet the basic costs of living, which the current gig is not. Either way we're growing very tired of this limbo, which makes it so difficult to plan ahead or begin even the simplest projects. I'm certainly loath to apply for permanent or long-term employment until we are more certain of our ultimate destination. And we are suddenly very sick of temporary living, sub-letting furnished apartments, leaving most of our worldly goods in a locker in Vancouver.
Meanwhile, once again, I'm wondering what the hell to do with my life. I can't make any decisions yet because I don't know if we're staying or going, but I'm considering some options. I don't really want to continue doing the sort of things I've been doing, web design and technical writing, though in theory it can be a relatively good way to make decent money without getting caught up in the full-time grind. In practice the job market is extremely tight here and I've barely had even a hint of a nibble. There's still a chance of some relatively lucrative part-time work with the provincial government, but after many delays and now a public service union strike I'm not optimistic that it will happen soon, if at all. So as insurance I've begun applying for full-time gigs but thus far no response from anyone. It's too early for real pessimism but I'm beginning to suspect that having reached my mid-thirties without acquiring anything but the most basic skills has rendered me less than employable in the new media business. Which is perhaps a blessing given my lack of enthusiasm for it.
Turning in different directions, I have talked to a friend in the magazine business about some writing opportunities. I don't know if this will bear fruit but I am slowly (much too slowly but the combination of sickness and limbo has not helped my powers of concentration) working on some ideas. I don't know if this will fly, some days I brim with energy and confidence, other days I ask myself what the hell I'm thinking. But at least I should try. The other direction, again contingent on what happens to us geographically, is to see if my long-standing interest in security and intelligence matters might not yield some professional opportunities, either in or out of government. It's a growth industry post-9/11, I'm told. Very speculative but perhaps worth exploring.
Unfortunately these vague ideas and aspirations do not address our immediate concern: money. We are basically broke. Last month I sold our Pivotal stock at $5 per share because it was either that or start borrowing the rent money from our parents. Things will hopefully get better if and when I find work or Annette begins summer teaching, but for now, the picture is grim. It's difficult to cope with the fact that we gave up a comfortable life in Berlin to come here for uncertainty and poverty, though I still believe that we didn't have much choice if Annette was to continue pursuing her academic ambitions.
Sometimes we wonder if we haven't made some terrible decisions, and that we are now in a seriously difficult bind. The other night, during a dark and pessimistic mood, I asked Annette "How is it that while we have more university degrees than any of our siblings, we have no money and no prospects?" (Then I suggested that the best way to ensure Madeleine's future financial security would be to take out a good life insurance policy, drop her off with one of our parents for the evening, and "make it look like an accident.") It's almost impossible not let black moods sweep over us sometimes, but whenever I feel depressed or frustrated by continued unemployment and financial insecurity, I remind myself of how lucky I am to have this time with my daughter, and time to myself. Not working does have some advantages; the difficult thing is finding a good balance between work and not-work.
So what is an average day for me now? Maddy goes to day care at the university four mornings a week, three mornings plus one full day. Sometimes I take her in alone, sometimes Annette, sometimes both of us. Some days I come back home and work on the computer; in addition to setting up a new box I've been sorting through my archives, old academic stuff mostly, and cleaning up our very disorganized collection of digital photos from Berlin. (I do plan to fix up the U9 site and restore the picture links, more for myself than for anyone else.) Other days I stay at the university, reading, looking for jobs online, writing a little, running errands downtown. In the afternoons, once Maddy wakes up, we ride to the playground at High Park or go to the café on Dundas, where she is a beloved regular. Sometimes I train in the afternoon or evening, but mostly I just spend time with my daughter. Annette has been very busy up to now, though her schedule has relaxed recently and she too is spending more time at home and we are enjoying more outings as a threesome.
In spite of our various trials, ours is still a happy little family in most respects. We don't particularly like the house but it is adequate and if the weather ever improves it's going to be wonderful having the back yard. Vita is extremely pleased with life. She loves having stairs to race up and down and she has been most grateful for yard privileges. She does not abuse these privileges. She goes out every morning and evening, sits on the deck, contemplates the birds, and playfully chases the neighbour's cat back over the fence. She even caught a mouse once. She looks very cute in her new red collar. Madeleine, meanwhile, grows at a terrifying rate. She now sleeps through the night almost regularly, which we are very pleased about, and talks up a storm in both English and German. Mostly she is just a happy, friendly, loopy, funny and delightfully fearless child. She's coming up on 18 months soon, which I find difficult to believe.
I am skating again and still plan to race the season out here, such as it is. Training was even going reasonably well until I got sick and everything ground to a halt. The indoor season ends this weekend (indoor is basically short-track on inlines, using a 100 m lap on a roller rink floor, very sprint-oriented so I suck at it, but fun and a good workout nevertheless) then we begin outdoor. First race is a marathon in Ottawa in early May. Prior to mid-March I was also riding a fair bit for training, without the trailer, and beginning to think about weights and dryland. Illness has been a major setback but now that I'm almost healthy I'm ready to begin organizing my program and training regularly again.
Should I continue with more personal writing, I ask myself. Now that I have time, a computer and a DSL connection, there's no reason not to. Except that there's not much to say because not much happens from day to day. What I've written here effectively summarizes everything that's happened in the past two months and probably covers much of what is likely to happen in the next two. This is not really an excuse, I know, but it's hard to commit to another journal project when the daily reality is so unchanging and the future so uncertain. We are in a state of flux but I'm not sure if it can be represented in an interesting (i.e. non-repetitive) narrative. That said, I do need to write.
Another letter from Toronto
11 April 2002Oh it all looks so different now. On Tuesday Annette was offered the Calgary job. Tenure-track. Assistant Professor.
Relief, intense relief. Two really miserable years behind us. She's safe. Her career will continue. What's more, it's not just a job, but a pretty good job in terms of money, teaching load, research support. We'll have enough to spend our summers in Berlin, beginning next year.
Needless to say I'm quite pleased about the prospect of living close to the speedskating oval and the bobsled track. Particularly if I can race inline in Germany for a few months each year.
We will probably stay in Toronto until early to mid-August, depending on how we settle the closing date for the lease. Then we'll live with Annette's sister until we find something more permanent. Apparently the rental market is really bad but real estate not to expensive so, god forbid, we might buy something relatively quickly. It feels very odd saying that.
No definite plans for me yet but we're seeing if I can't ride Annette's coattails a little and arrange some type of spousal employment with the university. Which would certainly beat going back into some nasty corporate office.
God we feel relieved. Pleased, and relieved.