Two hours to drive there. Twenty minutes drive back.
So that's what they call traffic.
Richmond Hill is a whole other world. So was the house at which I had dinner for the New Year.
I didn't even know these people, aside from a vague memory from thirteen years ago, walking along Central Island, listening to my dad speak with this suddenly old "Saul" and realizing for the first time that my father's brand of racism was worse than straightforward hate.
Thirteen years later I was an hour early for dinner, being grilled by Dori as to whether I had enough boyfriends and could she introduce me to this nice young doctor friend of hers, as I carried cushions downstairs, carried chairs from this room to that room, strained my screaming forearms (which I'm paying for today) with over-laden silver platters.
Dori's mom showed up, and her daughter, and her grand-daughter, and each generation got more uptight as they got younger.
Littlest Alexandra wound her little curly-headed self about my left leg while her mom, once the all-grown-up twenty-five-year-old Amy that I had looked up to as a friendless twelve year old, and now the uptight old crone, poked at my nosering and picked on my tongue ring and clucked and tsk'ed while her husband tried to escape the very same scrutiny and drag me off to a corner to discuss geekstuff.
Amy's mom, aside from being very old and very jewish, laughed at the tongue ring rather than recoiled.
Dori's mom, the woman who welcome my own mother when she first stepped foot into Canada, who braided my yellow wool while my mother studied to retake her medical exams
Pulled at my curls and poked at my cheeks and winked at the little wisp of tattoo that peaked out of my blouse.
She told me of my first english words, my first french words, and I, the girl who remembers moments from atop a pile of rocks in Poland when I was three years old
marvelled at these memories from in between then and now that she was revealing to me.
Sitting at a table laden for fifteen, little Toby (who says he'll marry me if I take him and his stepmom hang-gliding) and eldest lady surrounded me from these hunched overly jewish accents and their shrill whine
and the three of us gorged ourselves on mediocre chicken and undercooked tzimmes and eldest lady poked me when it was time to clear the table, and Toby giggled when I tried to get him to hide the chocolate cake just for the three of us
and we laughed and I straightened my shoulders and entertained the gallery across from us with Impressive Anecdotes from France and how french fries are actually Belgian, and I corrected Toby's dad's arrogant assumptions one too many times, until Toby's grandfather finally put two and two together
began jabbering at me in French
then Hebrew
then Polish
and by the end of that conversation (which, granted, left my brain as panting and crippled as my arms) Toby's dad was silent in his corner while his grandfather pointed out
That perhaps there is hope for my generation, more hope at least than the generation which came between us.
I was just happy to see the bigoted "Canadians should count in miles and inches like the rest of the world" bastard get reamed by his dad.
So many generations at play, one monstre in the middle with a temporary silver stir-spoon.
Towards eleven, a little tow-headed girl with the same eyes and dimples as mine curled up against my shoulder, I phoned a Mr. Pyke to make sure I knew how to get home
and began my goodbyes.
Phone numbers were exchanged, kisses were given. Stories about my mother at my age were told, and suddenly she was even closer to human, without the twenty years of hate and my father's influence between us.
Photographs of Dori and Saul's trips to Vietnam were shown, Dori inviting me along since her "uptight daughter" refuses to go to such "dirty places".
I promised that soon as my arms were responding again, I'd be the best pack-horse they'd ever had.
Driving home was suddenly so much less lonely
and curling up in his great gangling arms, lips to his chin, his lips to my forehead
there was a whole new veneer to happy, that I let go of the breath I'd been holding all week
and just let loose
a torrent of heavy tears borne of the intensity behind this smile, behind emotions, stresses, fears and suddenly magical twinges that I was willing to admit aloud and feel with every watt of puissance that I'd been damping.
I fell asleep into a salty warm ocean.
I woke up to that beautfiful smile.