The next thing
Backpacking In 2022
Toronto. Where it began, should an arbitrary point be relegated to a moment in time and space for a narrative to describe the present along thematic lines to the future. Here and now is where it began. Tomorrow is when it lives.
Where to begin? It’s been a long time of sparse blog updates. The past three years in Toronto were mostly great but were consumed by the rapid pace of graduate school. Now that the master of architecture degree is complete I’ve fallen back on old habits. I’m returning to backpacking as a lifestyle and it’s my desire to start up the travel blog again.
It was always my intention to travel after graduating. There are few points in life where extended travel is possible: between jobs, after school, and retirement. I backpacked Asia for three months after my undergrad and did the gap year that turned into two between engineering and architecture. I won’t lie that I’m dreading the office job that only has three weeks of vacation a year or longer having weekday mornings and afternoons to do as I please. So while it’s still possible, it seems both natural and important that I use this opportunity to travel and to be free.
A friend asked me if I’m excited for this trip but I haven’t thought about it very much. It’s not like a vacation or a holiday to an exotic destination that one looks forward to for months, experiences in days, and relives nostalgically for weeks afterward. It’s returning to a familiar way of life only this time it’s steered by prevailing winds rather than a determination of goals. Some of the same excitements exists, but equally new are more anxieties.
This final year of the program went by quickly, not only because there was a lot of school work to do, but because the weather was pretty poor and so we couldn’t get outside. In past years I’d spend the spring skating in the morning and then biking at night. When I look at the photos I took this year, they’re mostly of project work and few are recreational. That’s not to say that I didn’t have fun — it was just few and far between.
These were smaller moments like trying coffee at a new place with Jae or going on an expedition to see what plants were available at different shops. In hindsight, there was a noticeable lack of large social gatherings or bar nights. I suppose we were all just busy with our own things.
The one big event was a graduate party at the drake hotel right after thesis where I was able to socialize with a number of friends one last time. It was a celebration of a grand achievement and a farewell party. It was well organized and there were disposable cameras for people to document the night with. I have yet to see what came out, but the one photo I sent was nice.
My thesis was a two term project which focused on the history of Ontario. It was important to me that I learn about Ontario and that I have some indigenous aspect to my education. This proved challenging at times and if I could start over I probably would have chosen a project in Japan but at the time I didn’t have any idea what I would study in Japan so I picked Canada.
The Carrying Place Trail was an indigenous portage route between what is now Toronto and lake Simcoe. It was used as a shorter route to the upper lakes that was faster than staying in the water and paddling through Lake Erie, St Clair, and Lake Huron. When Toronto was founded, the Lieutenant governor Simcoe commissioned a military road up north that became Younge street — the longest street in the world. In the process, the trail was rendered obsolete and urban expansion quickly erased all trace of its location. It’s impossible to know where the trail was accurately but a rough idea of the route is known. I used my thesis to research the trail and then design four architectural and landscape interventions at significant moments of disruption. The project was equal parts architecture as it was landscape in design. My process used physical models to understand different aspects of the trails history and imply meaning through the arrangement of elements. For my final presentation, I made a film and presented sixteen models, unintentionally becoming that model guy.
At the same time as my thesis I was editing and publishing Emotive Architecture. In many respects, writing a book was equivalent in effort to doing another thesis. I enjoyed both the research and writing phases of the book making process but I found the editing more tedious and it took a long time to get comments back. I am, however, very proud of what I accomplished.
In the final weeks of school what breaks I had from the rigours of thesis were spent clearing out my apartment by selling what I could. There were just four days between presenting my thesis and moving out so I had to move quickly. Fortunately I don’t have many material things and I was nearly able to achieve my goal of having just six boxes to store at a friends (the seventh being a monitor that I couldn’t sell in time).
I was suppose to vacate my apartment at the end of the month but I left the next morning, Sunday, because I knew they wouldn’t be checking and I didn’t want to sleep on a friends couch. Moving out was otherwise a pretty seamless experience. I fundraised $1145 selling furniture and other items and would have made more but there are a lot of people who agree to buy something and don’t show up. I equally threw out a lot of perfectly good stuff and food because it was easier and less of a hassle.
In the morning of my flight I was intending on going back to school to get some final school work done and do some trip planning but they’d already locked me out. The fob didn’t work so I found myself at a coffee shop once again working from a temporary table. On one hand it was very comfortable to be working in coffee shops again but on the other it stressed my lack of a home address.
It’s a sad feeling being a backpacker without an address again. Thought I’m happy to leave that apartment and the memories tied to it, I’ll also miss the security of having my own space, a dependable source of food, and a hot shower. I was thinking the other day that when I was little and playing with Lego my worlds always had a home for “my guy” whether it was a house, an RV, or a houseboat. My foreseeable future does not include a place to call my own. Backpacking will be nomadic and when I return the housing shortage will ensure that I’ll be paying exorbitant rent for the foreseeable future. I dream of having a small waterfront cabin that I design and construct myself but it represents a seemingly impossible goal to have a treasure box for my valuables. Equally it represents a distant dream to make a place called home. I’ve spent a decade living in places I intended on vacating in 5 years or less that I never settled into and were only homes as far as being where my heart was. With that gone, I realize that I’m caught in a desire for a material commodity and finding a new heart for my, “home is where the heart is.” Traveling alone introduces a new set of challenges that I will need to overcome.
The strangeness of being a backpacker again is knowing that this trip will be fundamentally different than the previous ones. The first twenty days will be in Greece on a class trip after which I’ll be travelling with a friend for a few weeks and meeting other friends later on. Although I’ll be in good company for most of the trip, this is the first time I’m backpacking alone, and that I don’t have my best friend and partner in the seat beside me. That is a noticeable void of assurance, dependability, and confidence. On liftoff from Toronto I was reminded of this void as I sat on the aisle and an older Greek man at the window expressed his happiness of the vacant middle seat. I agreed that it was ideal and reflected on the way I’m returning to a familiar way of life while simultaneously entering uncharted territory. The plane climbed steadily through the clouds to a cruising altitude of 10,000 meters. Meanwhile, I pulled out my phone and began writing the next chapter on a new adventure.
