To the making of books, there’s no end. First impressions rarely tell the full truth about a place, a person, or a story. For the next four weeks, I will be sharing a few captions from Until My Dying Day. My hope is that this book will be among your gifts this holiday season.
In Until My Dying Day, Part 1, Chapter 10, I reflect on The Esplanade. It is a Toronto neighborhood pulsing with history, contradiction, and resilience. From the enduring legacy of St. Lawrence Market, the chapter uncovers whispered tales of old buildings. It also examines the lives they shelter, exploring what lies beneath the surface.
- Artists and outsiders. Ghost stories and spiritual truths. Public spaces and private battles.
- A building that once felt inviting later became a battleground for dignity and sanity.
- A neighborhood where everyone knows your business—or invents it.
Until My Dying Day is more than a memoir—it’s a mirror, a map, and a call to see deeper. It’s a place where beauty and hardship coexist, and where time slowly unveils what was hidden.
FIRST IMPRESSION
THE ESPLANADE is a neighborhood where one can find anything one’s heart desires. You will find great restaurants like the Old Spaghetti Factory in the neighborhood, which serves great pasta. St. Lawrence Market has been a famous continuous market since 1796 and was formally proclaimed the market block in 1803. There is talk about future privatization. The South Market was home to Toronto’s First City Hall and Police Station, Number One, from 1845 to 99. The original council chamber now houses the Market Gallery. The market has become world-renowned for selling fresh produce, seafood, meat, and cheeses, and continuing the tradition of the Farmers Market on Saturdays. Open on Sundays is a flea market, which is no longer as the site is under construction for another project.
Small and rising businesses: the Lilly Kimsa Theatre for Young People…the Berkeley Street Theatre…Canstage…the Hummingbird Theatre…Sony Theatre, and many more. People of all cultures and backgrounds, upcoming artists, pimps, prostitutes, homemakers, the homeless and the neighborhood gangs (a few of the members known by an acquaintance of a friend), run the street scene, have since then tried to improve the quality of their lives by making a CD, Still Smoking. A historical neighborhood was never quite destroyed by the great fire of 1849. Still standing are the buildings, years old, some telling a story of their past.
Yes, life in the area is quite interesting. If you were unaware of your neighbors’ business, it was because you were either busy trying to make it or kept to yourself. Most knew the other’s business, and even without factual truths, they made up stories of your life. Stories delighted by family gatherings. One that was told to me by my girlfriend Chelsi, who claimed she lived in one that housed a ghost you could hear in the middle of the night or early morning, was a bit laughable, as there is no such thing as a ghost. People call things they cannot see by all sorts of names, and it depends on the country you are from. However, the familiar one is ghosts. Laughable because, when buildings are old, the earth’s movement will cause noise in the home. Laughable because we are living in a spiritual world with wicked spirit creatures that create noises around us, causing fear to the point of wanting to move from where we abide. But also influences our minds from actions of those they have been able to seduce to conduct wrongful acts, which causes a person to want to move from their home; some even act in cruel and destructive ways toward themselves and others.
My first impression of the building shown by Mac, the super at the time, was an inviting one. After a few years, things started to change, like the saying, “Come see me and come live with me are two different things.” With all the cleaners did to maintain the building, some tenants saw that their work would never end.
I occupied a unit on the second floor of the seven-story building, made up of bachelor’s units, lofts, townhouses and one to three-bedroom units. Some of the tenants’ vendettas escalated from the housing staff to my unit. Some days on exiting the unit, I will be greeted with bags of garbage and baby diapers. This evidence, pushed against my mental inculcated thoughts—thoughts of me trying to be someone I am not—in their opinion; me wanting a child I’ll never have, and like garbage, I will be tossed out, are daily thoughts I battled. Daily, I went about my activities, trying to maintain a job by being on time and performing to the best of my abilities, despite the “insomnia” I suffered. And I was good at what I did. It is said self-praise is no recommendation, but I would not say what I did if it weren’t true. However, this was not good for some, as they saw that my efforts would not prevail, working under the circumstances subjected to.
My ability to foresee my enemies’ goals, office positions that came available, fear was not the only factors that stopped me from applying. Knowing that I would be giving all of myself in my performance, only to be told that I am no longer needed due to some dissatisfaction on their part, was the reason I neglected to apply and was satisfied just doing what I did, as my sanity is maintained.
Thank you for reading, for feeling, and for walking with me through part of Part 1. Stay tuned for another chapter. Part 2 is coming soon.
Better The End 