K-Dub

When you’re growing up, your town is just your town. Maybe as a teenager you hate it, but you probably can’t name the specific reasons except for maybe all the people you’re sick and tired of, your parents among them who’re driving you crazy and the fact that there’s nothing really to do at all. I don’t know if I ever directed my teenage angst directly at Kitchener-Waterloo, but I knew I wanted to get out. And out I got, when I was only 16.

I came back of course, and after only 6 months. The really strange thing is that living in a town of 300 people instead of 300 thousand people made Kitchener seem unbearably small. In Germany, I passed a river and sheep on the way to school. In Kitchener, I walked passed an Italian food store, over a railway track, through the parking lot of my Dad’s office and past a hospital. Just before actually entering school I had to walk through the “smoke hole,” where drug-deals were planned and girls came by with strollers to show-off their new babies.

I knew I wanted to get out, but mainly it was to get away from my parents, and to escape the possibility of going to a university whose populations was known to be made up predominately of "nerds". Many of those nerds did not speak English and were very into math. Many of those nerds went on to make a lot of money, and some even engineered technology considered partially responsible for our current economic crisis.

I left for university, came home, left again... There were some stints where I came back and the town surprised me: I realized how great the independent cinema was, and made a few new friends.

But I’ve been caught off guard by recent longings for the place. I actually found myself feeling a little jealous of the old friends who never left.

Getting back here though, I am shocked by the abhorrent urban landscape. In parts it seems the city’s greatest attempts at architecture come with the effort to make nice strip malls. There’s an organic food shop set up at a intersection of four-lane roads with tractor-trailers rumbling past in order to attract customers coming on and off the highway. There are tables with umbrellas set up so that when the weather gets better, customers can eat their deli sandwiches while soaking up the sun and watching the parking lot.

Residential neighbourhoods in this part of town actually have a certain charm: the brick houses are modest with peaked roofs with big trees out front for shade. Its not uncommon though, that this pleasant view will be marred by an overweight man cutting his grass while topless. In Paris, the man would be fined for this.

There are also a whole slew of new golf courses lined by monster homes. Each 700 thousand dollar home looks different, each is hideous in its own way. There are few trees except for those on the golf course, there’s nowhere to shop or socialize, but plenty of two-car driveways making ample room for Mercedes convertibles and Land Rovers.

It’s safe to say that after seeing all this, my nostalgia has waned. Then a friend tells me, “Get thee to Schneider’s Bush, you can find morel mushrooms under the white pines this time of year.” So I hop on my bike and ride through sprawl that feels like it will never end. I cycle past houses on pieces of land where only cows grazed when I was a kid. I make a left-hand turn past more of these houses until they disappear and give way to a Christmas tree farm and I’m almost there. There is a lone stop sign at the end of the road where I can lock-up my bike and, I step into the woods.

Almost immediately I find a mushroom, but I realize I don’t know what a morel actually looks like, and this one just looks like one of the regular white ones that may or may not be poisonous, so I keep walking. For five minutes I can hear the nearby road and I half hope I’ll always hear that road—for fear of getting lost. The sound fades quickly though, and I march on. I stop to watch a beetle who seems to be making-love to a twig, then am urged on by the mosquitoes attacking my knees.

Soon I come to a clearing covered in tall grass sloping upwards. Except for the trees along the bottom, this place would make a perfect toboggan run. A rabbit darts under some brush. Maybe he was planning to do that anyway. Maybe he was startled the large intruder that’s stumbled out of the woods—by me.

When I reach the top I look at where I’ve come from, over what should be the city—but all I see are treetops. Where am I? Have I just walked through a magical wardrobe?

I decide to walk through another section of forest and find another, much larger clearing. The hum of traffic I’ve been living in has been replaced by a cricket symphony. A crow calls out from the far end of the field, and sweeter little birds chirp around me. I stand there for a while just to listen and feel the sun. The grass brushes around my legs and then the mosquitoes resume their attack. I move on.

This next patch of forest is different from the last. The pathways are not covered with a layer of dried pine needles. Instead I walk on hardened deep-brown mud criss-crossed with roots. It gives the impression an older forest—a deeper, darker and more mystical sort of place. The air is wet in here, and I wonder if maybe I might bump into someone at some point. But it’s pretty clear I’m alone: the only movement in this forest comes from scurrying animals or the odd bird.

Down another hill and around another corner my eye gets stuck on something bright green. I look harder and see that it’s a pond covered in moss and the sun is shining on it.

The next clearing is a farmer’s field—acres of land that used to be corn. I’m getting a bit worried now, because this isn’t what I was expecting. So I resume my former path, and try to get back to the first big clearing. I’m relieved to find it and let my legs go loose down the hill and back into the forest.

I don't hear the road here as I hoped I would. In fact, I come out to another spot that looks unfamiliar. Have I completely misjudged my path?

“Hello!” I call out, even though I know no one will answer. I briefly imagine the search party formed to find me, which they probably will quite quickly but if not, my greatest risk of death will be the mosquitoes. I hear my father’s voice chastising me for coming out here alone.

Then I see a house and rush towards it. There are two little gardens and to me the place is perfect. I walk right on the road then change my mind and go left—I see my bike 200 meters away.

Kitchener-Waterloo has been redeemed.

As I unlock my bike and put my sweatshirt in my bag, I hear a car come to a screeching halt behind me.

“Hey you!” The driver yells, “You know where the Alpine Trailer Park is?”