My Involuntary Nomadic Life
What raw sewage, 70 flights in five months, and breakups have in common.
Two weeks ago, Toronto was hit by an unusually slow-moving and severe thunderstorm that dumped 126mm of rain (almost 5 inches) on the city in only a few hours. It was the most rain the city has ever received in recorded history.
The storm rolled in around 6pm as I was getting ready to leave work. The office lost power, and we were all looking outside as the water level in the underpass across the street rose rapidly and water spewed out of the storm drains. That underpass ended up getting flooded with at least six feet of water (pictured above).
I’m a pilot in training and, as a result, I’m a bit of a weather geek. I love storms and I was taking in the view of the storm from the office window while waiting to [optimistically] bike home in a brief clearing.
That’s when I got a call from my girlfriend.
The basement is flooding! There’s sewage spewing out of the toilet, shower and drains like a fountain! I don’t know what to do!!
I told her that I had tenant insurance, but she should try to save as many valuable or irreplaceable items as possible.
By the time I got home, there was still raw sewage covering the basement floor, but it had mostly drained, leaving only… sewer debris (I’ll let you fill it in with your imagination). The smell and fumes, as you can imagine, were nauseating and unbearable for more than a few seconds at a time.
We rent the ground floor and basement of a home. The living area and kitchen are upstairs, but the bathroom and bedroom are in the basement. I knew we couldn’t stay there that night, so we packed up a few clothes and went to a friend’s place.
Two weeks and counting
In the two weeks since, we’ve spent much of our free time coordinating with the landlords about cleanup and repairs, and my insurance company about compensation for the contaminated belongings and living expenses for not being able to live at home.
But the repairs are taking much longer than anyone’s best estimates. The floor had to be torn out, drywall cut, insulation removed, everything disinfected, etc. The landlords are also taking the opportunity to add a backwater valve, which is supposed to prevent sewage from coming into the house should this happen again. This means there has been a three-foot deep hole in our foundation and piles of dirt everywhere for the past four days.
What’s struck me most about this experience—and it’s not over yet—is the intense feeling of unease and stress that comes with being displaced. It’s hard to describe to people what it feels like to be in the city where you live, and needing to maintain the same routine, without actually being able to live at home or have easy access to simple things like clothes and other possessions. It’s hard to explain how draining it is to travel back-and-forth between temporary homes and your uninhabitable home, often several times a day. Perhaps most of all, it’s hard to not have a clear date in sight when things will return to normal.
We took advantage of some insurance money and spent four nights at a hotel downtown. This was nice, but ultimately made us feel even more displaced — particularly for my girlfriend who, as a musician, often works from home.
It’s one thing to be on vacation in another country for weeks or months on end and accept that your routine is different. In that case, it’s both desirable and enjoyable. It’s another to be so disrupted that you don’t know where you’ll be spending the night, but you need to do your best to keep up the same routine and obligations every day.
70 flights in five months
It occurred to me that I’ve had this feeling at least twice before. Last year, I was working half the week in New York City and the other half in Toronto. The company I worked for at the time paid for an apartment sublet in New York so I would feel more grounded during my time there.
This seemed like a great opportunity at first, but I never imagined the physical toll this would take on me and the strain it would put on my relationships. Often, I would fly back-and-forth between the two cities several times a week. Friends started to assume I was out-of-town and unavailable. I started to grow grey hairs (I swear this is causal!). I seemed to miss my favourite bands coming through New York and Toronto. Nothing lined up.
And that horrible feeling of displacement set in… The feeling of not being close to the people that matter to you most. Not being close to anyone at work when everyone else worked under one roof. Spending at least 20 hours of travel time and waiting time in taxis and planes each week while still needing to work an 80+ hour week. All the while, anything that looks remotely like a routine gets thrown out the window. A last minute change of plans on a Monday meant I was on a plane 6am Tuesday instead of Thursday.
I flew 70 flights in a little over five months.
When I was in New York, I was living in a home that wasn’t mine, with things that weren’t mine. I lived out of a suitcase and take-out containers. My fridge only contained beer.
When I was in Toronto, I would split my time between my apartment and my (former) girlfriend’s apartment, at the other end of the city. At her place, I also essentially lived out of a suitcase. I was never grounded anywhere. As an introvert, I think this is especially challenging.
Déjà vu, pt. 2
Eventually, the travel ended and life went back to normal for a while. I consolidated everything in one place and started to settle in. I felt my energy levels slowly return to normal. My feet were grounded for the first time in six months. But that didn’t last long. My girlfriend and I broke up and I moved out. I’ve previously written about that experience in an blog post, Home is a Feeling.
At that time, I left what had become my home and stayed with some friends here and there while I looked for a new place to live. When I returned to the place where I lived with my ex-girlfriend, it struck me that what we call home is nothing more than a feeling. It’s not a physical place, per se, but rather a feeling of comfort. A place to retreat, regroup, and call your own.
And here, almost a year later, I find myself in a similar situation. Living almost here and almost there, unable to return “home”. Waiting for Godot.
You can take your suitcase living. I need to wake up in the same bed more than three nights in a row so I can focus on the things that give me meaning in life, and I can recharge my batteries.
Any day now—maybe tomorrow or the next day or the next day — I’ll be able to have a normal life again. And this weight will be lifted.
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