The Busker on the Waterfront
It’s 2007, and I’ve just completed my week-long in person Suzuki Flute teacher training at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
I don’t remember much about being in Hamilton during that trip. I know I took a bus shuttle from the Toronto airport, and arrived naïvely thinking I could just walk to the McMaster University residence where I was staying. (I gave up after about 10 minutes and hailed a cab.) I have cousins in Hamilton who are my parents’ age — I know they came and got me one evening for dinner. And I remember the campus being absolutely beautiful.
Not much else, including the actual reason I was there — to become a Suzuki Flute teacher — sticks with me. I have some photographs that bring back a few memories, but that’s about it.
Following the teacher training, I took myself to Toronto for a few days after with no real hard and fast plans. From 1999 to 2003, I spent a few weeks to several months each summer working at CFB Borden, roughly 100km north of Toronto. For two of those summers I had my own vehicle there, and Toronto was a frequent day trip on weekends. Long before the days of smartphones and Google, I got to know the area well enough that I didn’t need a map in a few spots, learned that I loved visiting it but would never want to live there, and developed an affinity for exploring downtown on foot.
One of my childhood friends was in grad school at U of T during those years, and during one of the summers without a vehicle, I took the bus up and crashed on her dorm room floor for a night or two. I remember walking everywhere because I didn’t want to take the bus. I walked to a major music store with my flute to get some repairs done, found the Canadian Music Centre, home to contemporary classical music in Canada, and shopped — clothing I couldn’t find anywhere else, ranging from cheap and unheard of to designer. There was a small kiosk in Eaton Centre called Designs by Naomi which sold unique, bold, and brightly patterned shirts and pants. Someone I worked with had bought an outfit there and it was amazing; I tracked down the store to buy something of my own. Almost every year I returned to Toronto I bought something there. The kiosk did so well that Designs by Naomi became Rock ‘N Karma, high end designer fashion with a storefront.
My initial trips to Toronto in the early aughts when I had a car had a pattern: Eaton Centre, the downtown Chapters-Indigo, which boasted an incredible CD section, carrying CDs for many Canadian and independent artists of all genres (more than many other CD stores could say), and a giant bookstore appropriately named the World’s Biggest Bookstore.
I quickly discovered that the best strategy for getting around was to drive straight into downtown Toronto and park in the all-day underground parking at Eaton Centre, allowing me the freedom to get there via car, have a place to drop off anything I’d purchased, and still spend the day exploring on foot without worrying about my parking meter running out of time.
In 2007, I’m reliving some of that. Wearing what I would call my typical Toronto outfit — a tank top, heeled sandals, and a knee-length sarong skirt, and carrying some sort of purse that fits a water bottle, sunblock, and a snack — I’m wandering the waterfront in the heat of the summer. Toronto does summer like not many other places in Canada: high temperatures combined with stifling humidity. Most hate it, and for good reason. It can be a little hard to take. But I’d spent 7 consecutive summers working in Ontario for the military, doing parades outside in the muggy heat. I can handle it.
At almost 31 years old on that trip, I look some years younger. Blonde, blue eyed, slim, and nowhere near stylish, I hope I don’t look too much like a tourist, and rather a little cooler than the awkward young adult that I am. I attract approving looks from the odd young man around my age, and if they’re cute by my standards, I smile back. This is part of the dance of being young and unattached, and I enjoy it for what it is. I am not there to hook up.
Along the Quays, I stop to listen to a busker around my age who’s playing violin.
He’s good, so I sit on a nearby bench and listen for a bit before putting a bill in his case. He takes a break and comes over to talk to me, flirting. He’s cute, and we chat about music. He tells me about the Toronto Music Garden not far away and suggests I check it out. I take his advice and find the garden, where for $5 I can rent one of the guided tour playback machines that used to be a thing before smartphones did it all for us. I’ve rarely rented them in the past, but I’m so intrigued by this garden that I figure it’s worth my $5. (I remember nothing about what it said, but I’m sure at the time it was interesting.)
When I’m finished at the garden I walk back the way I came, and the busker is still there. He finishes up his set and asks if I want to go have a beer. It’s hot outside, he’s cute, and I’m single. The answer is yes. I thought he meant we were going to a pub to have one. Instead we find an urban hill not far from where his busking pitch was and he pulls a beer out of his backpack after asking a nearby business if they can spare a disposable cup. We split the beer — something light that I don’t particularly like — and he asks if I want to smoke a joint with him. No, but thanks for asking. As it’s long before the substance was legalized, I request if he could hold off until we’ve parted. I’m not a fan of marijuana regardless, and I hate the smell. To his credit, he obliges.
We chat more. I don’t remember much of what we talked about, except that busking was how he currently made his living. He talked about busking in the Toronto subways, and mentioning something many musicians who busk don’t clue in to: treating it like a job. Getting up, going to the pitch, and playing for several hours a day, at the same time every day.
I also busked at that time, playing flute at Edmonton’s Saturday markets. I enjoyed it but not enough to want to do it for hours and days on end. The Saturday morning market, if you got there early enough to get a good busking spot, was fairly lucrative over just a few hours, but any more than that got tiresome as the crowd thinned out.
I can’t remember the name of the young man I sat on the hill and shared a beer with. Based on the back of the picture I took of him, it may have been either Ryan or Nathan, but even there it’s unclear — apparently by the time I got those pictures printed I’d moved on and forgotten his name. I remember he was younger than I was by a few years.
He’s clearly interested in me, and gives me his email address (texting was only just becoming mainstream). After we part, I go back to my hotel and use the hotel’s business centre computers to send him an email, in an attempt to see him again before I head back to Alberta. While I wasn’t there to hook up, hey -“I may be dumb, but I’m not a dweeb”-if the opportunity had presented itself I’d have taken it in a heartbeat. I never heard back from him, and it’s very possible he had a girlfriend and enjoyed the flirt but wasn’t interested in crossing any lines. I’ll never know.
Fast forward nearly 20 years to 2025, and I’m back in Toronto, staying at the same hotel in the Don Valley following a family wedding in Ottawa a few days earlier (where I, coincidently, wore a Rock ‘N Karma dress).
The reason I know about this hotel is because once upon a time, it was owned by the Crowne Plaza chain. I worked part time for the Crowne Plaza hotel in Edmonton in the late 90s and early aughts, and enjoyed a couple of nice staff perks — like being able to stay at other Crowne Plaza hotels for an absolute fraction of the price. Almost 25 years earlier, I’d first stayed at that hotel with a boyfriend on a weekend trip to Toronto, taking advantage of said staff pricing. By the time my 2007 trip arrived, I was no longer working for the Crowne Plaza chain, but Hotwire and other discount websites were becoming popular. Hotwire wouldn’t give the hotel name until it was booked, but it did give a location radius. When I looked up the area and this particular hotel showed up, I took a crap shoot and booked it. My intuition had been right, and it was the same hotel.
This time, I call the hotel directly to book for two nights. It’s a lot more built up in that area now, and getting there even with Google’s help involves a couple of u-turns and more profanity than expected. It’s been a long drive coming from Ottawa on a Sunday afternoon, and I get caught in end-weekend traffic and construction: what is normally a 4.5–5 hour drive took nearly 7, and I’m exhausted by the time I finally get to the hotel. The air conditioning and clean, peaceful room are a welcome sight.
I have around 36 hours to spend in Toronto, and am trying to plan my time strategically for my one full day there. I have friends in the area but on short notice — and with Toronto being so big — I’m unable to make my time fit with theirs. Adult life is a series of missed connections and text messages saying “next time”! I make plans to visit the Botanical Gardens the next morning and the Toronto Music Garden in the afternoon.
The Botanical Gardens are pretty but nothing spectacular to me. I have lunch in the cafe at the gardens, and a burly young man with a big beard who works there admires the dragon tattoo on my upper back. I then relocate to downtown. Toronto traffic certainly hasn’t improved in 20 years and is one of the things I definitely don’t miss. Well, I’m not in a rush. I manage to find parking off Spadina in an underground lot, and give myself 2 hours. I have the parking website and stall code if I really need more.
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The waterfront looks a bit different — or perhaps my memory has a different recall — but I take it all in, fancy camera in hand, looking for the perfect shot. The boats, the open water, the Toronto Islands. I’d forgotten there’s an airport on one of the islands and I manage to get a picture of an airplane taking off.
The Toronto Music Garden is still there, although some of the signs could use a little maintenance.
There are no more handheld devices to rent that will give you a guided audio tour, but the garden is well populated with people enjoying being out in the sun.
I wander the waterfront further down until it ends at a boat business. Not in the need for anything boats today, I turn back.
It’s at that point that I realize something.
There are no buskers out today.
Now, it’s a Monday, and perhaps buskers find Mondays aren’t lucrative enough to set up a pitch, or perhaps there are restrictions on when and where busking can happen in that area. In Toronto, buskers are licensed and must have a permit; I don’t know if pitches are assigned or not.
Though curious if I can find the urban hill I sat on during my last solo visit, I’m not there to go on a wild goose chase, and I can’t easily see the area where I might have sat with the busker I met. I may not have ventured far enough away from the Music Garden, as Spadina runs right down to the water in almost the exact spot where the garden is. My parking spot was a fluke for location, but I’ll take it. (Upon returning home to Alberta from my trip, I dig up my photo album from the 2007 trip to find the picture I took of the busker. Based on the background of the picture, I determine I was only a couple of blocks off of where I’d met him. Perhaps I should have walked a little more to find that spot. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.)
Dressed similarly enough to my younger days, in sandals and a long flowing sundress that plunges in the front WAY more than I’m used to, my nostalgia here is fleeting. I don’t have a need — or desire — to meet a busker (or anyone else for that matter) and run off to sit in a secluded area to have an illicit beer. One could speculate I’ve grown up (also married). I’m also at the end of several months of a very high pace of life and work, and this is, in reality, my vacation. I’m very much an extrovert, but currently a very tired one, and going back to my hotel and relaxing for the evening is appealing.
On the way back to the parkade where I’ve left my rental car, I stop at the coffee shop in the same building and order an iced mocha. In my haste to get to my car before the parking expires, I forget to ask for decaf, and I only realize it when I take the first sip. I almost never take caffeine, thus coffee at 3pm is a dicey choice. I wonder if I’m going to be able to sleep tonight (future me: no).
Getting back into the parkade is a small adventure but I eventually make it and hit the streets of Toronto the same time as everyone else. Google Maps tells me that the Don Valley Parkway going north towards my hotel is currently the Don Valley Parking Lot and I decide that if it’s going to take 45 minute for what is normally a 15–20 minute drive, I’d rather take the scenic route. A quick peek at the map tells me this is possible, and I noodle my way home along Broadview and a few other streets east of the Parkway. By the time I actually arrive at my hotel, it’s been 90 minutes of noodling to get back. I managed to take only a couple of wrong turns that involved going around the block or course correcting in some way, and also only managed to get stuck behind a streetcar once. The drive takes me through a number of different areas in Toronto that all have similarities but are all different, and it makes me want to stay in Toronto for a week to explore them all. The drive back, though significantly longer than the most direct route would have been even with traffic, was hands down still a far more enjoyable drive than being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on a freeway.
Back at the hotel, I visit the sauna to relax a bit, then have a late dinner and a glass of wine, sitting in a part of the restaurant that looks out at the outdoor swimming pool.
I remember swimming there on my first trip to that hotel in 2001, with my boyfriend at the time.
This time, there are no boyfriends or buskers. It’s just me.
As I walk back to my room after dinner to unwind and put my feet up for the night, I try to remember what the hotel lobby looked liked 18 and 24 years ago. There used to be a baby grand piano: it’s now gone. I’m pretty sure the computers that I would have used for email were near the front desk, though my memory is a little patchy.
The next morning as I check out, a bit of nostalgia creeps in, of me in my 20s, trying to figure out the world as most do at that age. I’ve moved on from that part of my life, both personally and professionally, but I have fond memories of my 20s and very early 30s. I briefly wonder what, if anything, would have been different if I’d ever heard back from the busker.
I do know what would have been different if I’d never met him. I wouldn’t know about the Toronto Music Garden, and I wouldn’t have gone back downtown specifically to see it.
Was that the point of all this? Did something just come full circle?
I suppose I’ll never really know.
